We have been considering our world.
Christmas is coming, and you will not be surprised to learn that we are exactly as broke as we usually are.
We have been saving up our two pound coins to buy a Christmas tree, and organising Christmas presents here and there, and it is all very exciting, but of course it all costs a very lot.
This has been helped along by both the children having birthdays this month.
This morning we looked around ourselves with a critical eye, and realised that we have been so busy thinking about Christmas, we had allowed ourselves to become paupers whilst we were not paying attention.
The fridge was empty. The log pile was empty. The biscuit tin was empty.
We had run out of wood completely. We could have lit the fire, but it would have gone out again very soon. If it had been cold I would have had to start thinking about which furniture I liked least.
We found some pizza that Oliver had left behind and had it for breakfast.
Mark cocooned himself in a warm boiler suit and woollen scarf and took the dogs off to the farm to organise some firewood.
The fireplace was not empty because we do not have any money. We have got enormous quantities of wood up at the farm. Some of it is still lying in huge tree trunks, but quite a lot of it is already split and stacked, and waiting to be used. We have just been rushing around being busy, and distracted. Keeping your house warm with firewood is not like gas central heating. You have got to pay attention, and we had not.
I found myself left alone, frowning at an empty fridge.
The first thing that I did was to clean it.
This is a good thing to do when your fridge is empty. It is not just because it is easier when you do not have to take anything out first. The thing is that an empty clean fridge is completely different from a fridge which contains sticky patches of spilled tomato sauce, and blackened carrots, and stray bits of onion skin. This latter speaks of defeat, and poverty, whereas a shining clean fridge is filled with optimism. It is a space waiting to be filled with tubs of hummus, and fresh fruit, and interesting cheeses. The ghosts of all of these future inhabitants seem to be only a breath away, and make the fridge a happy place to be.
Also it was a bit revolting anyway.
Once the grit had been emptied out of the drawers and the shelves wiped then I could set to resolving the problem.
We had got no spare cash for fresh fruit and hummus, but I defrosted some mince that Number Two Daughter had left behind in the freezer. We have not been interested in this, because it had a label telling us that it was Low Fat, and it looked correspondingly brown and sludgy and unappetising.
There is no brown sludgy food that cannot be encouraged by the addition of cream and red wine, so I did this. I do not mind using valuable red wine at the moment, because it is the shockingly awful Chateau Windermere wine made from the 2016 grape harvest, and cooking is its perfect destiny.
I found a whole bulb of garlic in the bottom of the fridge, and some depressed-looking wilted celery, and chopped it all up and chucked it in with onions and carrots and tomato purée and crushed brazil nuts.
Whilst it was all simmering I hauled the mixer out from the back of the cupboard and made some cherry and coconut shortbread.
I made fudge and coffee chocolates as well.
When Mark came home the house smelled lovely.
He stacked an enormous pile of dry logs beside the stove.
We filled our flasks with hot dinner tonight, and ate it with buttery chunks of fresh bread.
The fridge is still waiting for its hummus and fruit, but it is bright and clean, and has tubs of chocolates and home made fudge. Tomorrow’s hot dinner is sitting solidly on the shelf, and there is a tin of shortbread on the dresser.
The house is clean and warm, and smells of fresh bread and dry logs.
We do not feel like paupers any more. We are not neglected.
We have looked after ourselves splendidly.
