A very curious encounter

Picture the scene.

A young man (my son) is on a train sitting

at a table of four seats.

He is wearing a casual navy jacket,

a T-shirt and V-neck jumper

with a pair of dark maroon trousers.

Opposite him are a smartly dressed woman and her husband

in their late fifties or early sixties.

She has a cold.

After a while she opens a pack of Lemsip sachets

 takes them all out, and puts them in a tidy pile.

She then opens up the Lemsip box.

Thusly.

She turns it over and begins to write.

The young man does not take much notice of this,

(he is working on his laptop)

until she pushes the piece of card across the table to him.

She smiles. It is a message for him.

Here is what it says:

Do you think she makes a habit of offering 

unsolicited sartorial advice on trains?

Would an unremarkably dressed young man be likely to 

a) be grateful for this advice,

b) want to act on such specific advice?

Would she have risked doing this to a woman?

Would she have welcomed my return note

correcting her spelling of 'accentuate' and 'wear'?

What would you have felt?

What would you have said?

The best gift

It's beginning to look a bit like

A perfect dawn.

Time to see off this beastly bug for good.

The leaking coolant pipe in the car has been fixed

(yes that was the third thing),

the meat has been collected,

the veg box delivered,

the cake has been iced,

the Advent windows admired,

cards and twinkly lights,

are disposed about the house.

O. has made a huge batch of seething sourdough

and I have cracked open

the Quality Street.

Interesting how much smaller the old tins were.

And finally the orange pastry recipe for mince pies
from my  'well used' Josceline Dimblebey book.
I hope you can read it Frances.

Things going slightly awry

I am being tested.

No sooner was the cooker fixed than the digibox

went on the blink and failed to record the Strictly final.

Also.

I had lovingly inputted all the programmes we would want to watch 

over Christmas using my bumper legendary Christmas Radio Times

and it has folded its arms and said, 

'No. You will watch live or not at all

like in the Olden Days.'

Also. 

I have a cold.

The sort that might not loosen its foul grip in time for Friday.

Also.

Cooking on gas

It took two hours

and a hefty fee,

to change a 3 amp fuse -

which I provided.

But I am very grateful to the skinny
and much tattooed young man

who wrestled the beast out of its lair,

disemboweled it,
diagnosed the problem

and reassembled it,

without damaging either tiles or floor.

Let the roasting, baking and grilling re-commence.

Exquisite timing

With two loud bangs

our gas stove threw in the towel last night.

At first light the hunt began 

for anyone who knew how to fix it.

The usual rigmarole followed with The Four Seasons on hold.

The passing from hand to hand in various organisations. 

The out of order number, the wrong number,

the,

'We're very busy, everybody wants their cookers fixed. 

I will get someone to call you back between

24 and 48 hours.

Then it will be up to 5 days before anyone can come.'

The lying on the floor with a torch to find

the ten digit model number engraved on its intestines.

The very real possibility that it is beyond repair,

(it is twenty years old),

or the parts are unavailable.

I consider the option of buying a new one,

shudder at the expense

and realise that we will still be sailing very close to the wind 

for delivery and installation.

Plus I happen to remember that the floor was laid up to

and not under the stove in a close fitting chimney alcove and 

that it was an even tighter fit after the walls were tiled.

Likely the floor and tiles will be damaged

as the old one is extracted and the new one pushed in.

Although the entire electrics have blown 

and the gas is therefore cut off to the ovens and grill, 

the burners on the top will still work with matches.

Poached goose anyone? 

Winging it

What do you do if you decide to make some mince pies

and discover that your mince pie tin is missing?

You get a fancy tin from the back of the cupboard,

thankful that you did not Kondo it

and make mince pie madeleines instead.

The broken one didn't spoil the line up for long.