Siege mentality

WITH the builders systematically first tearing the guts out of our old kitchen, then much more slowly, fitting the new units and appliances, our home for the past week has been in a state of near siege.

My Good Lady and I, therefore, decide to decamp for the duration, and to set up home in a nearby self-catering cottage.

It seems a good idea at the time.

Unfortunately, the cottage, although modern, turns out to be a cold, heartless place, charmless and deeply dispiriting.

For four days and nights we endure a rather clinical existence while all the time fretting about what catastrophes might be befalling our kitchen, and longing just to get home and check on work in progress.

We resist the temptation; they have our mobile number, we tell ourselves, if they haven’t called it’s because there’s nothing to say. No news is good news, surely?

Meanwhile, we distract ourselves as best we can. Our friends, Mike and Helen, live close by, and they provide us with a welcome daily refuge from both our worries and our gloomy, pro tem home.

We’re also in an old stomping ground here. We visit Kendal, where I used to work and Arnside and Silverdale where we used to live, and observe how things have changed in our absence.

And yes, this side of it is quite interesting. Trouble is we have to return to our melancholy cottage, and to our worries about what’s ado at home.

Finally, Friday arrives. We pay our tab, and set off à toute vitesse to get home. Don’t quite know what we’re expecting - the house in a pile of rubble, perhaps, or a heap of ashes. I’m almost amazed to see it’s still standing there, much as we left it, the fitters and electricians and plumbers diligently putting the final touches to our new kitchen.

And it will look all very swish shortly, I'm sure.

And I feel almost sick with relief.

We went away to allow My Good Lady some respite from the stress of workmen around the place; instead, she's had to endure me in such a tiswas that I’ve been something of an ogre to live with this past week.

So convinced was I that something dreadful was happening, I simply couldn’t relax and enjoy our rural sojourn.

Next time – if theres is a next time – I think we’ll just stay at home.

Banana boxes time again

WE'RE UP to our eyes in stacks of banana boxes again.

All our kitchen clutter, glasses, plates, pots, pans, not to mention store-cupboard foodstuffs, are all scattered here and yon.

The dreaded workmen are here again tomorrow, this time to fit us a new kitchen.

It's odd really, after so many years of making do, we're now obsessed with home improvements.

We've done the lounge, the bedroom. We've done the front drive. And in almost every case, we're run into trouble.

Now, we're into our most ambitious alteration yet, and we're dreading the sheer number of possibilities for potential boo-boos.

While it's being done, we're moving into self-catering accommodation, away from the everyday stresses of living on a building site, but close enough to be fairly readily available should we be needed in an emergency.

(This way, too, we can pop back, from time to time, to keep an eye on how things are going, trusting folk that we are!)

We're keeping our fingers and toes crossed that by this time next week I should be cooking our spicy spaghetti Bolognese in a brand new cooking environment.

Can't wait.

A madelaine moment

SOMEHOW, ALL day today, I'm haunted by memories of Australia, and I'm not sure why.

I mean it's a pleasant enough day, but nothing particularly antipodean about it.

It's just a lovely English spring day. We visit our friends, Mike and Helen, and so pleasant is the weather we even manage to persuade them to come out to their local for a couple of hours - bit of a struggle with Mike being so seriously incapacitated by his Motor Neurone. We manage, though, and have quite a social afternoon, what with so many of Mike's friends stopping by and having a chat.

Yet all the time, at the back of my mind, is the thought of our visits to Aus, to Sydney and the Blue Mountains and then, on the second occassion, to Port Stephens.

Both memorable trips, but why am I so preoccupied by them today, now? We've no plans to go back there at the moment; and it's not as if we've been talking about them particularly.

Odd.

Anyhow, we're driving home this evening. We've decided that for dinner we won't stop at a restaurant, but instead pick up some fish and chips and bring them home. It'll save us a bit of money, and it'll be a bit of a change.

And it's then, as I'm standing at the chippie, waiting for our haddock and chips to fry, that the penny drops: the last time we had fish and chips from a chippie was at Nelson Bay, Port Stephens.

Excellent they were, too - battered barramundi, I think the fish was, with a good dollop of salt and lemon.

And I can even the remember the occassion of it - it was the day we went to listen to jazz at the winery, sitting in the open air within sight of the vines, supping wine and listening to some really cool sounds.

Wonderful day.

And to think, the idea of fish and chips has brought all this on! It's like Proust and the taste of a madelaine buscuit bringing back a flood of memories.

Seems I've had a madelaine moment!

Horticultural frustrations

I’M GAZING out of the window at the back garden with a certain amount of frustration.

Not that I claim to be anything like as enthusiastic a gardener as My Good Lady, but there are some things I’m itching to do out there.

For example, last autumn, we had a cloudburst, a torrential downpour of rain. It lasted for about twenty minutes, but in that time about five inches of rain fell.

The whole of the back yard was covered, even part of the lawn as far as the bird bath.

It was pretty scary.

But the result is, when the water receded, we ended up with a very muddy back yard. And it’s this I’m keen to have a go at cleaning up.

The only trouble is, for the first time this winter, the arthritis in my feet is playing up – to the point indeed that I’m hobbling painfully around to get the simple necessities of life done. My Good Lady refers to me as “Hop-along” (MGL can be quite unsympathetic, you know).

Anyhow, pondering the garden, I’m being drawn to get some large pots, and having a bash at growing some vegetables in containers. I understand, from Gardener’s Question Time (BBC Radio 4, Sundays) that you can grow spuds pretty much the whole year round.

“But why in containers?” I hear you ask. “You’ve got a huge garden, by modern standards. Why not turn part of that into a veg plot?”

Oh yes, I could tell you that it’s because it’s so wet out there that even in a raised plot most veg wouldn’t survive.

Or I could tell you that we have such an abundance of snails and slugs* that veg wouldn’t stand a chance. (* is there a collective noun for slugs? how about a “slime” of slugs? Just a thought.)

Or I could even tell you that because of the number of trees and shrubs we’ve got at the far end of the garden, only the most shade-loving of vegetables would grow.

But the truth is, I feel very insecure about vegetable growing.

My previous efforts have only been partially successful – for all the above reasons.

Also, because, I’m basically physically lazy in my middle age decline, and I fancy having food growing outside of my back door.

(Spare me your reproaches, I am pushing sixty!)

Anyhow, at the moment, I’m just sitting and gazing out with my foot up and feeling a few horticultural frustrations.

On the PM and a risotto

COURTESY of Which? magazine, I've sent an email to the Prime Minister.

It’s not the first time I’ve sent emails to heads of state.

I sent emails of protest to both President Bush and PM Tony Blair before we engaged in the war in Iraq.

I got a polite acknowledgement from the White House, but no reply at all from 10 Downing Street.

(I get the feeling that the Americans take the democratic process more seriously than we do – it seems we are still, essentially, a monarchy with democratic trappings and as such, we don’t deserve our government’s attention except, perhaps, at election time.*[* Of course, it may be that they simply don’t know about emails and such like.])

Anyhow, back to my Which? question.

I’m puzzled.

No, I’m baffled. Confused.

Mr Brown, with his Scottish Presbyterianism, is a great believer in working hard and saving for your old age (i.e. the Protestant work ethic).

However, our savings, for our imminent old age, are going down the toilet. Fast.

What’s more, we are being encouraged to spend, spend, spend our way out of the present recession.

So, what to do – spend or save, prudence or extravagance?

I await the PM’s reply breathlessly.

(Maybe I ought to send the same question to the occupier of the West Wing – I might at least get a reply!)

Anyway, on to more important matters.

It’s my experimental cook day, today – a blue cheese (Gorgonzola) and butternut squash risotto.

But what makes it really something special is the meat we have with it – and we always do have something like sausages or steak or fish with our risottos, they can be very monotonous, otherwise.

Today, unusually, we have burgers with the risotto – sausage meat and black pudding burgers, and I have to say, the meal is absolutely delicious!

The blend of the gloopy, flavoured rice and the crispy, grilled burgers is truly excellent.

If you want the recipe just let me know, and I’ll post it here.

Like I said, something special…

In the toilet

We visit Mike and Helen today and take along a stack of cards for him for his birthday from friends at the Pub - the exact day of which has set the whole of the Geriatrics' Corner all ahoo. Somehow the simple expedient of ringing up and asking never occurred to us.

On the drive out to the little Lancashire village of Borwick, My Good Lady and I are struck by the spring-like brightness of the day, bright and cold and with showers threatening, but definately heralding the season of rebirth.

Mike doesn't get around as much as he used to because of his Motor Neurone problems. And he's had a number of falls recently which have shaken his confidence rather badly.

Still, he and Helen are great company, always a pleasure to visit.

"There isn't any mains drainage in the village," they tell us. "We have to use a communal septic tank. And unfortunately it isn't always properly used." Seems the tank is blocking up, and the toilet is backing up rather badly.

This puts us in mind, though, of the eco-lodge we stayed at in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. No flush toilets there, either. Just a very large, dry tank. You had to keep the seat down all the time to allow the contents to compost itself. And remarkably, it lacked any malodourous emissions - indeed it smelt fairly sweet.

Using it, though, was a bit spooky. You always got a draft of cold air whenever you lifted the seat. It really put the shivers up you!

And although it wasn't bad, it did make you appreciate the comforts of a five star Sydney hotel toilet.

A card for Mary

WE WOULD have given the Pub a miss today, were it not for Mary R's birthday.

We pick up a card on route, and when we arrive at the Geriatrics' Corner we find the place fuller than usual - fuller, in fact, than it has been for quite some time.

The gang is in good voice, though, and seemingly in great good humour.

We stay for about an hour.

Back at home, My Good Lady and I get dinner on, a roast chicken dish à la Jaime Oliver and which turns out to be excellent, although we ignore the injunction to serve with cous cous and have some spuds instead. (Not keen on cous cous at all.)

It's a quiet evening for us; we watch a little telly and then MGL calls it an early night. We're both tired, and I'm grateful it's the weekend.

Sprats

I'VE NEVER cooked sprats before.

You eat these tiny fish whole - head, tail, bones, guts, the lot.

Simplicity itself they are to do.

Just dusted in plain flour which has been seasoned with cayenne pepper, I deep fry them for about three minutes. And that's it, done!

Such is my experimental cook session for the week!

Holiday-making

I PUSH My Good Lady, as quickly as I can, through the pouring rain and the icy wind, towards the Tourist Information Office.

We’re here to try and locate some possible accommodation for the time we’ve got the kitchen fitters in.

And as we go in, I see a family – parents pushing a pram and holding a toddler by the hand – walking miserably along, resigned to the rotten weather and their even more rotten surroundings – an out-of-season English seaside town.

A little later, we meet up with Fran and Den at the Pub – they’re just back from a few days’ holiday in Torquay.

These two events suddenly bring back to me memories of family holidays when I was a lad.

Holidays in places just like Morecambe, or Blackpool, or indeed, Torquay.

Holidays when we had to trudge around in the rain between the hours of breakfast and teatime – landladies wouldn’t permit you into their boarding houses during the day, at least not at the cheaper boarding houses which was all we could afford in those days.

Less miserable, perhaps, were the caravans we stayed in, in Rhyl and Scarborough – at least we were allowed to stay indoors if the weather turned inclement.

Eventually, we graduated to full board at a guest house – a posher institution altogether. This was slightly more comfortable, and even the weather, for once, was a bit better: I think I even got a touch of sunburn here.

All of this, of course, was suffered in the name of what my father proudly called “holiday-making”, and it was bound up, part and parcel, with working-class snobbery.

It was all so he could boast about it to his mates at work – who of course were just as bad as he was.

Where you went, where you stayed, what you did – it all counted for much in the prestige stakes of a worker’s life.

To be gossiped about as a family who went, say, to posh Southport rather than common Blackpool, was a source of much satisfaction in my father’s world.

Certainly, holiday-making had little to do with enjoyment back then.

And thinking of that family, today, I wonder if things have really changed so much.

Of old books and a kedgeree

I’VE MADE and early start on the spring cleaning.

I’m pulling down all our collection of books and then dusting and polishing the shelves – a few at a time. While doing so, I glance at some of the titles and I wonder if I’m ever going to read any these volumes again.

And if not, why do I bother holding on to these dried, yellowing tomes?

I don’t know really. Just having them here, like this, is somehow reassuring and comforting. They are like discreet old friends, quietly sitting here and keeping us company.

And pulling them down once in while for an air and a dust is a small price to pay their companionship.

For dinner this evening I do us an old favourite, a salmon kedgeree. I’m very partial to these mixtures of rice, fish and hard-boiled eggs, and I’m quite good at them, though I do say so myself.

The recipe is simple enough. While boiling up some long-grain rice, I sweat off an onion, open a tin of wild red salmon – I always use the wild, if I can, it really does have a better flavour – and dice up the pre-boiled eggs. When the rice is done, I mix all the ingredients together, add some seasoning and a pinch of cayenne pepper and then serve with tinned plum tomatoes. Easy and very tasty!

It’s a somewhat subdued evening, this, we’re both a little tired. We watch Come Dine With Me (C4), the competition in which a group of strangers come to each other’s houses for a meal, then vote on it’s success or otherwise.

And I’m struck – not for the first time – while watching this programme by just how many people there are in the world who I wouldn’t even give the time of day to, let alone want for them to come to my home for a meal.

I suppose it all makes for interesting television.