And so...

"And so, as Tiny Tim observed,

God bless Us, Every One!"

                                                                       - CHARLES DICKENS, A Christmas Carol

Festive season anxieties

SOMEHOW, our resident domestic jinx is determined that we shall not enjoy any of the season’s cheer.

A second – brand new – set of tree lights has now partially failed and we shall have to return it to our local branch of Focus from which it was bought only on Monday.

I appear to have mislaid the receipt, however, so I just hope I don’t get any grief in exchanging it.

Between that and My Good Lady's dental problem – she lost part of a tooth – and has to get it seen to tomorrow, while I have some blood pressure issues that need addressing on the morrow’s pm.

And now, one of our car’s warning lights tells me that a headlight bulb is on the blink.

It just seems to one thing after another.

I’ve expressed before in these blogs my general sense of the other shoe syndrome that haunts me at this time of year – I’m just waiting for the next disaster to strike.

And I peer around me like a man beset by anxiety – what will it be? Still more health problems? More domestic upset? Some weather-related misfortune?

To be honest I shall not be sorry when this so-called “festive season” is over and we can all get back to a more normal life.

Recipe cards

THE “QUICK and easy” bit of yesterday’s tikka masala was the carton of cream I was instructed to pour into it – and that’s where I think it went wrong.

It was okay on first taste – the bite of the chilli in contrast to the smoothness of the cream – but by about halfway through the meal it got too much for us, too unrelentingly creamy.

Moreover, it was an odd mixture – for a masala, I’d expect to use yogurt and peppers and maybe some tomatoes. None of these were present in this “quick and easy” version of this Indian classic.

I must admit to having certain reservations about these supermarket recipe cards – you know, the ones you find in slots around the store walls.

They are there not so much designed to instruct you on how to cook certain dishes, but to sell you more of their produce.

And this applies to the recipes of some TV celebrity chefs like Delia and Heston and Jamie.

I sometimes think these people forget for whom they are writing – that’s to say, they seem to have professional cooks in mind rather than domestic amateurs like me.

The spurious authority that their names provide just helps to flog the supermarkets’ slower moving lines.

Anyhow, I shall from now on take these cards with a very large pinch of (sea) salt.

Of Chrismas telly and talk of food

I’M FLICKING through the Christmas double-issue of the Radio Times, looking for highlights to mark up.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when there’d be a good movie premier for Christmas Day evening, and maybe another for Boxing Day. Not so these days.

I suppose with so many channels to choose from, and with recording so easy to do, fixed schedules must seem something of an anachronism to most broadcasters, and no doubt to many viewers.

Still, I do miss a good film on the big day; it was just something to look forward to.

*

WE STOP by our favourite butcher to pick up a couple of chicken breasts for tomorrow’s dinner – I’m planning to do us a quick and easy tikka masala. I’m intending to make up the sauce myself.

Actually, food is the main topic of conversation at the Pub, what with reporting on Monday’s excellent Christmas dinner there and with Mr P, the music teacher, setting himself up in a catering business.

He’s literally counting the days to his retirement. He’s already getting more orders for his services that he can comfortably cope with – by all accounts he’s a very good cook indeed.

He’s planning to remodel his home kitchen to accommodate his new venture, but he’s miffed about a new EU regulation stating that every catering establishment must have a blast chiller.

“What’s a blast chiller?” I ask him.

“It’s a chill box that reduces hot food to cold in a matter of minutes to prevent bacteria forming.”

What annoys Mr P, though, is that we Brits are the only ones to take these European health regulations seriously; “The Spanish and the French just ignore them!”

I’ve no doubt that’s true. I know from experience that the French just shrug and pay lip-service to such foolishness. As if a little bacteria ever hurt anybody…

Shame about the crackling

THE ROAST loin of pork we have for dinner this evening is excellent; it’s just a shame about the crackling.

It goes all peculiar on us – soggy, flavourless and really disappointing.

My Good Lady and I are great fans of crackling, it’s the best part of the pork in our view.

We can even reminisce about great crackling we’ve enjoyed in the past – like the wonderful stuff we had at an eco-lodge we stayed at in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. So good was it, MGL lost a filling in her tooth in the eating of it and its replacement cost us £100. But we still reckon it was worth it.

So what’s gone wrong with today’s?

MGL blames the recipe, and the additional margarine she was instructed to coat the joint with. “Too much excess fat,” she decides.

(Actually, the recipe calls for butter to be rubbed onto the pork, but she thought soft tub margarine would be easier to spread.)

Anyhow, we feel a little cheated, although the meat itself was very tasty along with the roast potatoes and the carrots. The roasted apples would have been better as plain apple sauce, but that’s a minor quibble.

What’s more I’m looking forward to the next few weeks. Friends will tell you how much I appreciate a weekend roast and to come, in short order, are roast goose, roast turkey (on Christmas Day) and roast belly pork for the New Year. All washed down with copious amounts of good red wine.

Oh yes, my cup runneth over indeed!

Waiting game

THEY MOVE you from one waiting area to another – and sometimes back again; each department you visit seems to have its own.

Anyhow, for an appointment which I thought might take fifteen to twenty minutes ends up being most of the morning.

First I’m seen by a rather pleasant chap, the specialist in the hearing department, and he gives me a preliminary examination.

I’m then sent to have my ears cleaned by a device that might have come out of a James Bond movie – a nozzle attached to machine that wheezes and groans and de-gunges my ears of their heavy wax build-up.

Next – after a suitable wait – I’m despatched to the other side of the clinic to have my hearing tested and measured, and once again I’m attached to a machine which sends faint tones into my ears and at each tone I’m to press a button on a handset I’m holding.

Trouble is, the tones are so faint, I’m not sure if I’m hearing them or if I’m just imaging doing so.

Eventually, the machine next to me cranks into life and prints out a long stream of results. Looking at this now, I get a sinking feeling that my fate is now sealed.

Back to the Ear, Nose and Throat Department and my specialist again: my tinnitus, it seems, is due to a loss of hearing in the higher frequencies and as a result I’m now listening to some of my own body’s functions – electrical currents passing to my brain, maybe the circulation of my blood, and so on.

A normal consequence of growing older, I’m told.

There’s mention of my needing a hearing aid, perhaps, in the not too distant future, and I’m suddenly feeling ten years older! Did I ever think, in my youth, that I would ever be likely to need such a thing? I didn’t even think so this morning!

They are holding off for the moment, in the hope that things might now settle on their own account; I’m to make another appointment in six months time to re-evaluate my circumstances.

More waiting! Meanwhile, I’m to continue putting in the drops.

More computer frustrations

I’M HAVING problems with one of our computers again.

A little while ago, I installed the full version of the security suite from AVG, a replacement to the free edition I’d been using up until then.

To begin with it worked fine, the anti-virus and firewall software doing their jobs a treat.

Then, suddenly – nothing! The program completely ceased working.

It’s still there, in the installed programs list; but my computer refuses to recognise it or to run it.

My attempts to uninstall it have come to nought – logically enough, the computer cannot remove something that doesn’t exist.

I’ve loaded the remove program from AVG, but that too refuses to recognise the security suite’s presence on my hard drive.

So here I am, stuck with a program that put me in a real double-bind. It’s like having a mouthful of food that you can neither swallow nor spit out.

Of course, I’ve sent AVG an email of complaint but so far the only response is an automated reply telling me to go the faq section of their help site.

There really are times when I’d like to pick this whole machine up and drop it into the deepest quicksand pool in Morecambe Bay!