Tuesday things

FIRST THING, after breakfast, we're down to the supermarket to purchase some essentials that we're running low on.

We're not alone it seems; the shop is heaving!

It's as if, during a bank holiday, people have been entertaining the ravaging hungry hoards and are now desperate to lay in provisions for the next onslought.

We return home to a phone message - our friend, Mike, has been rushed into hospital with breathing problems. We were due to go and visit him and Helen tomorrow, now we have to await further developments.

I get my head down for an afternoon zizz, and later we're on the phone to scare up some workmen to try and get the last of the kitchen finished. They faithfully promise to come... sometime.

We turn our attention to dinner.

While My Good Lady attends to the salmon, I focus on the wok and the vegetables and noodles stir-frying away.

Unfortunately, the small oven has a habit of unexpectedly switching itself off, and now, at the end of its twenty minutes we find the fish is stone cold! On it goes again, this time with both of us keeping our eagle eyes on the timer.

It turns out okay in the end, in spite of our super duper new cooker!

Evening. We watch a recorded episode of Numb3rs, before giving Helen a call about news of Mike. We can only leave a message on her answering machine, though; clearly she must be with family or friends. We can only wait and hope and pray.

Despite the rather sombre mood that's settled on us, we open a bottle of Viognier, and to some cheery tunes by Doris Day, we manage to end the evening in a more positive frame of mind.

Slow Sunday

EVERYTHING seems to go onto hold during the long bank holiday weekends.

My Good Lady and I tend to batten down the hatches during these times, and go out as little as possible.

We take a deep breath and wait for the world to get itself back to normal.

Easter or no, we still go through our usual domestic Sunday chores – the bed changing, the dusting and vacuuming and so on.

And as usual, I do us a quick dinner this evening: it’s actually a salmon and broccoli bake served with some jacket potatoes. Very good it is, too. Unfortunately, I serve it with an over-oaked Chardonnay – not so good.

Evening. We watch Come Dine with Me (C4), a programme that irritates and fascinates me in roughly equal measure.

A little later, after I tuck MGL into bed, I watch a bit of the Abba evening they’re running on Five. Never a great fan of the Swedish supergroup I’m afraid – somehow I could never get past their glam rock fashions! Still, looking back, I suppose they did make a pleasant enough noise – they certainly knew how to please their fans.

I doze off on the sofa during part of Abba the Movie – and wake up again with a start to the end credits and “Thank You for the Music”.

So, on the whole, a slow day, a slow weekend.

Birthday dos

FOR My Good Lady's birthday tomorrow, I plan to cook her dinner.

We're meeting up with some of our friends in the Geriatrics' Corner first of course - several of them have already rung up to ascertain that we will indeed be there, so it should be a lively session.

Mind you, there was a time when these birthday dos started to become rather expensive.

It began with PD buying a bowl of chips one year, just as a bit of treat.

It quickly escalated into great platters of sandwiches and quiche and all sorts of other goodies - and the daft part was, I don't think any of us really enjoyed this food; the birthday boy or girl felt obligated to provide it because everybody else did.

Anyhow, when it started to get out of hand, by common agreement, we knocked it on the head: now we just settle for a round of drinks.

Back at home, then, I plan tomorrow to combine some experimental cookery with whipping up a birthday treat for MGL: at her request, I'm doing us a salmon and rice casserole - a real oldie this recipe, dating from the days when we were first married, thirty-odd years ago.

Maybe a spot of wine to go with it - we've just had a delivery of some interesting-looking German wines...

Should be good.

Still waiting

WE SEEM to be permanently waiting for workmen, and a tiresome business it is, too.

We can't really move on with the kitchen until the electrician has fitted the new lights, and the joiner has put the finishing touches to the units.

Meanwhile, we're having fun with all our new appliances.

The old dishwasher had three programs on it, the new one has fifty-two!

We've just about mastered the main oven, but the microwave is still a mystery to us; My Good Lady is planning on doing us some jacket potatoes in it in a day or two, and it promises to be quite an adventure.

All the while, too, we're wandering around the room like a pair of nomads and trying to remember where we put this jar or that bottle and feeling that the place is not yet quite ours, won't be until the job's complete.

So, we wait, and wait...

Sunday things

IT'S A bit of a pain, trying to vacuum up the carpet tile fragments that are littering our kitchen floor at the moment.

We've put them back temporarily until we sort out some decent flooring for the room; at least they're better than clumping around on wooden boards.

But they are a pain to vacuum. The cleaner tries to suck the tile up along with all the grime that's on it.

Lordy, I'll be glad when this kitchen is done!

This evening we watch some interesting music programmes on BBC4: the first is an old Omnibus interview between André Previn and Oscar Peterson, both great jazz pianists. When they played together something quite magical happened!

The second programme was about the remarkable career of Previn himself - jazzman, arranger for the likes of Lerner and Loewe, now legendary conductor of the LSO, not to mention the butt of some classic jokes from Morecambe and Wise. Hence the title: All the Right Notes.

On the whole, a very entertaining evening.

Picking the day up

BIT OF a mishmash of a day, with a lot of hanging around waiting for workmen.

We manage to sneak out at lunchtime to the local farmers' market, and get some provisions for today's and tomorrow's dinners.

Apart from that it really is a bit of a drudge of a day.

The electrician does finally turn up and fastens the switch that's been dangling by its wires for a week or so to the wall.

He also checks the wiring and pronounces it healthy - even though it has a tendency to fuse whenever we switch on the oven and the extractor at the same time.

"It's just a little sensitive," he tells us. "It'll settle down."

We hope he's right.

He also agrees to return next week and hang our new kitchen lights.

We finally manage to escape to our local for an hour before dinner - just to get away from the stress of hours of waiting.

For dinner, I do us a risotto with mushrooms and peppers and a miscellany of other veg. We have it with the excellent Lancashire burgers we bought at the market.

Not too bad at all.

My Good Lady is feeling a bit down in the dumps after the strain of the day, not to mention the tensions of the week as we try to pull our lives back to some kind of normality.

So, to cheer her up, I crack open a celebratory bottle of champagne - and after all, we do have much to be grateful for.

I put on a CD - Charles Trenet, a chipper chappie of a French crooner, and to his cheery chansons we sip our fizz - a rather splendid Perrier-Jouet with a rich, biscuity finish.

Picks up the evening a treat, does that.

Hoarders

MY GOOD LADY and I are hoarders.

It was a habit inculcated in us during our childhoods by parents who believed that nothing should ever be discarded, just in case...

We were both brought up to unwrap Christmas presents carefully, so that the paper could be reused and the string balled up and kept for another time.

Cardboard boxes were tucked away into the backs of cupboards, miscellaneous bits of mismatching china was laid aside in drawers and dressers.

I suppose if you lived through years of war and shortages it was a hard routine to get out of - and for MGL and I, it still is.

We are getting a bit better at throwing things out, but now, of course, the recycling ethic justifies us in keeping our clutter: we can hoard now to save the planet.

As good an excuse as any, I suppose.