Making the best of it

WE VISIT the local farmers' market to stock up on our fish and meat stocks.

We come away with a decent enough haul: a joint of pork for roasting on Saturday, a fillet of halibut for one of My Good Lady's experimental recipes next week, and a couple of packs of venison for the freezer.

Meanwhile, I'm still excited by the prospect of our new kitchen. Not the actual upheaval of having it installed, though. For that week or so, we've decided to find ourselves alternative accommodation.

After all, we won't have the facilities to make ourselves so much as a pot of tea, let alone a meal. And as for the hassle of banging and dust, of workmen wandering in and out all day long - any attempt at normality will be futile.

So we're looking around for a reasonable place to stay.

My first thought is to rent a self-catering chalet at a place we know not too far from here - we could easily pop back if there are any problems, but far enough not to have to worry about every bang and clatter.

MGL, though, suggests we might take this opportunity to have a mini-holiday and stay in a hotel. And there are some good, well-priced offers available. Maybe a comfy room in a country house hotel in the Lakes or the Yorkshire Dales - still within reasonable travelling distance of home should the worst befall.

And thinking it over, this does make good sense.

The kitchen is, by far, the biggest project we've ever undertaken, and the most expensive.

We might not get a second holiday this year - which is our norm. We're still hoping to visit Malaysia and Brunei later in the year, but it must be said, our finances have taken a tumble in the recent financial mêlée.

Maybe we'll make the best of it, and take this opportunity to have a bit of a break.

Geriatrics' Corner

HAVING a relatively free day today, we decide to visit the Pub.

We find Little B there, sitting in front of his half of bitter, all alone.

We actually feel a little guilty, these days, at leaving him so much.

There was a time when there'd be a whole gang of us here, in the Geriatrics' Corner; now the only everyday regular is Little B.

And where once the sounds of laughter and boisterous conversation filled the room, now, more often than not, we find it quiet and empty.

Seems odd to think that this was at one time the centre of our social life.

Sad really.

The dishwasher - again!

I'M TRYING to use our nearly clapped out old dishwasher again.

It's loaded with three days worth of plates and pots and glasses and if I don't wash today we'll be dining off our laps with our fingers and drinking wine straight out of the bottle with straws!

A little nervously, I top up the machine with back-of-cupboard stuff that's definitely in need of a wash - you know, the sort of items you hardly use from one year's end to the next.

(I have to fill the machine with something because it doesn't have a half-load setting.)

Anyhow, I finally get it full by throwing in the teapot and the chip pan. I pop a dishwashing tablet into the detergent holder, pour in a glug of rinse aid, shut the door and switch on.

It's at this stage that I start to keep my fingers crossed.

It takes about three hours to do the full wash (what Hotpoint likes to call a "SuperWash"). And I'm pleased to report that not once does the program dial jam - as it sometimes does - and even the hot air dryer works tickety-boo.

Then I open the door and my worst fear is realised: the detergent holder lid has failed to open again. The whole wash has been done in nice, clean, soap-less, hot water - with just a splash of rinse aid to help it all along.

I examine the plates: they don't look too bad... Some of the food has got itself baked on, perhaps, but not too badly... Nothing that a quick wash by hand with a dishcloth won't solve...

Oh, isn't progress just peachy!

Eight out of ten (a dialogue)

( DAVE C, newly returned from his weeks' Mexican jaunt and brown as a berry, is sitting at a table in the Geriatrics' Corner of the Pub.)

ME: How was the holiday, Dave?

DAVE: Not bad. I'd give it eight out of ten marks.

ME: Only eight out of ten?

DAVE: There were one or two little problems. Our hotel room was so filthy we demanded a change of hotels. We thought that if a place had five stars it was bound to be okay!

MY GOOD LADY: (Ever the lawyer.) Not necessarily. There's no universal agreement to the star system. It's usually awarded for the range of facilities an establishment has in relation to the number of rooms....

DAVE: The other problem was with the flight out. We paid for extra legroom, but our seats were pushed up right by the front partition. There was hardly any leg space at all, just a hole where you put your feet.

ME: Oh dear.... (I think for a minute.) Did you manage to get any fishing done at all? (I know how much Dave loves his big game fishing.)

DAVE: Nope. (He shakes his head.) None of the charter boats even left the harbour. The fish weren't running. Wrong season.

ME: What about the price of food and drink out there?

DAVE: About the same as here, I suppose. Oh, I went into one bar and ordered a litre glass of beer, and it cost me eight pounds....

ME: (Astonished.) Eight pounds for a glass of beer?

DAVE: (Nodding.) I only had the one!

(I frown and scratch my head.)

ME: At least the weather was good. (I point to his tanned hand.)

DAVE: Well, actually, no... It was overcast and cold for the first couple of days...

ME: So let me get this straight. Rotten flight, bad hotel, no fishing, dear beer, poor weather.... I'm amazed you've given it as much as eight out of ten!

DAVE: (Shurgs philosophically, and smiles.) Apart from all that it was great!

Atherton

WE ARE viewing the third of the kitchen designs and my impression of it is of something of excellent build quality, but rather basic. Somehow, I expect something more than wooden boxes with shelves, no matter how well made.

The designer's a pleasant enough chap, though. He's moving house shortly and I ask, by way of conversation, where he's moving to. "Atherton," he says.

Atherton!

The very town where I spent the first ten years of my life! And they do say it's a small world!

Of course, the town I remember is a far cry from what no doubt exists today. I've not visited the place in nearly forty years.

Long gone now are the brick-built cotton mill chimneys on Mealhouse Lane where my mother used to work. Gone now, too, are the foundries whose furnaces used to so fascinate that wide-eyed boy, staring in through the open doors.

No doubt the cornfields we used to walk through on long summer days to get to Daisy Hill Park have been turned into housing estates, and Brickfield, where the wakes - the travelling fare - were held, is probably now a car park.

But my goodness me, how the memories do flood back at the mention of that one word! Atherton!

Steaming!

YOU WON'T believe it, but they are still charging me!

I cancelled my account with AOL last December - but the buggers are still charging £2.99 a month to my credit card.

It seems the card issuer can't help because it isn't a direct debit or a standing order. This is an arrangement, they say, between me and my former Internet Service Provider.

I like that word, "arrangement". As if I had any choice in the matter.

Anyhow, the bank suggests I write to AOL directly, a signed letter, sent by recorded delivery, and keeping a copy just "in case".

(I would have sent them a email, but, would you believe, AOL don't appear to have an email address!)

So I've sent a letter to their concellations department in Waterford in Ireland - seems they don't have a slow-mail address here in the UK, either.

I'm awaiting their reply, and I'm steaming!

Saturday things

I ENJOY Saturdays. It's the one day of the week when we rarely have any commitments, when we can do just what we please, in our own time, at our leisure.

In summer, it's a time for pottering around in the garden, or in my case, perhaps, giving the old car a wash and polish.

This time of year, though, it's a matter of battening down the hatches against the weather and looking forward to better days ahead. It's a time for planning holidays or home improvements, of searching the internet for ideas and good deals.

The highlight of Saturdays, though, is usually our big cooking session. We have the time to do a long, slow roast, or as in today's case, a North African style stew, a tagine.

This is a recipe that My Good Lady picked up on our last visit to France and she's trying it out for the first time with the aid of French/English dictionary.

Like many an Algerian or Moroccan dish, it mixes fruit with meat and veg to produce a sweet, spicy concoction, rather dry perhaps, but very strongly flavoured.

Not a dish we'd want to have regularly, but certainly something a bit different.

Evening. We watch a recorded episode of Numb3rs, before cracking open a bottle of champagne - it is Valentine's Day, after all.

A relaxing day, then, before the onset of Sunday and all that that involves: bed making, house cleaning, washing... etc, etc.

Dropping the ball

I'M NOT depressed, exactly. Not even sad. More a little sober.

We seem to be surrounded by reminders of our own mortality, of friends who are ill to a greater or lesser degree, or people who have died, like our neighbour.

It's a sobering awareness, the sense of mortality. Most of the time we ignore it, or try to. What's the point of dwelling on the inevitable? Then just sometimes it just come to the fore - like now, for us.

We are sometimes forced into the awareness that, no matter how hard we cling to it, one day we're going to drop the ball. Just, hopefully, not today. Nor tomorrow.

And maybe that's the one consolation.

"Eat, drink and be merry..." We still have the ball now.

Just something I'm thinking about.

Only if and when

SILENTLY, SILENTLY, the snowflakes flutter down and turn the grey world white.

For once the forecasters have got it right for us. They're right, too, to say it won't linger long: it doesn't. By this morning it's all but gone.

I have to use some warm water to melt the ice off the car's windscreen, but that's about the only inconvenience it causes us.

My Good Lady and I are off to see the practice nurse first thing; its blood test time for us both.

In my case, there's a tiny warning bell sounding about a possible liver problem. And according to my GP it is only tiny.

He's covered the alcohol issue - the obvious culprit - and I've even been semi-truthful about my consumption of the stuff.

He hasn't told me to stop drinking, yet, and I've made it clear to him that I've no intentions of doing so.

Oh, I could give up beer easily enough, and I don't touch spirits. But wine... Wine has become part of my life. Not to share a bottle with MGL over dinner would be like going out without trousers on - dinner would seem undressed, incomplete.

Nor do I plan to give up my other wine tippling - the odd bottle MGL and I share of an evening to some great cool sounds of jazz from the CD player.

All right, if it becomes a seriously health-threatening matter, I'll cut back a bit. But only if and when.

We're back again, Pet!

I'VE BEEN watching a TV series of which I have a great memories, and I'm pleased to say that it doesn't disappoint.

The original series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet (ITV 3, Tuesdays and Wednesdays) was, for me, little less than an inspiration. And a frustration.

The theme of the series was amusing enough in a fish-out-of-water sort of way: a group of Geordie brickies leave recession-blighted England to find work in Germany. And predictably, all the national and character clichés are there in full measure.

But what lifts this into something wonderfully iconic, was the timing of it. 1983. Maggie Thatcher and three million unemployed. (In the opening title sequence, one of the characters walks past the street poster that helped the Tories into power: a picture of a long, long queue of people standing in line with the words "Labour isn't Working" above them.)

And somehow the despair and sheer indignation that many of us felt during those grim years is brilliantly and sympathetically reflected in the misadventures of this group of builders. It was as if the very reality of the times compelled you to both laugh and cry with this bunch of British misfits abroad.

It was as if the series hit the nail on the head.

Their very ordinariness, in an English working-class sort of way, was what appealed. With only basic manual skills and little education (homesick Neville has an O-level in woodwork!) we understood these characters, because in some small way they were us.

And surely, this is the definition of great drama?

And to one who flirted with writing for television at one time, I found this series both great and deeply frustrating. Not just because it was so well written - although it was - but because it made you aware that luck made such an imponderable element to the equation of writing popular television drama.

Auf Wiedersehen Pet returned for another three series and a couple of Christmas specials, but none of them had the same impact, the same relevance, as the original first series.

And if nothing else, it made me realise I was wasting my time writing for television. It was too much a ethereal medium for my rather stolid temperament. I don't know if I was right or wrong, but this television series certainly changed the direction of my literary aspirations.

Wednesday stuff

THE FISH counter at the supermarket has been a bit bare, lately, so it's pleasing to see that the seas have become more bountiful again. Some beautiful-looking cod fillets, even a few whole carp - and glory, the size of them! - and rarities like tilapia are in evidence today. Unfortunately, for My Good Lady - and to my relief - she cannot find the squid she's searching for. We've tried squid and octopus before, abroad, and neither of us liked them, but MGL has found a recipe she's keen to try. "You never know," she says, "we might end up really enjoying it!" If ever there was a statement of optimism triumphing over experience, this is it!

It's actually a fairly quick shop today, thankfully. It's coming to the end of a long afternoon, what with meeting one of our kitchen designers in town, and then spending an hour discussing his proposals together in a quayside pub. Next, we pick up our prescriptions from the GP's surgery and do the chemist run. Finally, the supermarket and then home, to one of MGL's excellent turkey quiches. By the time we flop in front of the telly we're just about done in. It's been a busy day, but much has been done. I think we're a step closer to our kitchen.

Quiet weekend

IT'S BEEN a quiet weekend. Just the ticket, really. Just what I needed. The highlight of it was undoubtedly the roast chicken My Good Lady did for us on Saturday - simple but delicious. And of course a glass (or two) of wine. We watched a couple of movies on DVD - two of the Bourne thrillers, good, all action, escapist entertainment.We're very lucky to be so easily contented. For stimulation I do the odd on-line crossword and MGL occupies herself with a jigsaw.

With the coming of Monday we're back on the kitchen hunt, this time visiting Magnet. And I have to say, we're really quite impressed with what we find. Maybe not of the highest quality, but certainly pretty good, and at a price we can't fault. We're busy thumbing through the catalogue this evening, and it looks as if we've maybe made a tentative decision as to our choice. I can't say how relieved I am to have made up our minds about something. This whole business has proved to a real chore. Not that it's over yet, but we're getting there.