Friday 1st May 2015
Thought I’d pop in for a chat by way of distracting myself from the headache I can feel brewing. Headaches always make me nervous and when I’m nervous I talk more. I’d have popped over to Eileen’s for some sympathy and TLC, but she’s on some kind of pensioner’s away day with her church. I’ve taken painkillers and I’m hoping they do the biz and murder the pain before it attacks me any further. It’s just my luck. I’m due to have a Daddy and boy one-to-one night out with Shane tonight. We were going to go out for a cosy dinner together. Dick is going to some golf club committee event with indigestion man, Reny. I was looking forward to dinner with Shane. He’s been a bit cross with me of late, and not just because of the political rant thing (still don’t know what swine to cast my pearl of a vote at.) I was hoping a bit of intimate together time would wipe out my recent kitchen ‘plughole’ transgression and put me firmly back in his good books.
I’ve been baking this afternoon. I find that baking is sometimes a good mode of distraction when I’m trying to beat off a headache threat. I looked up a simple recipe for a ginger cake online. It’s in the oven now. It smells delish! I wanted to use up some golden syrup I found in the cupboard. It was a year out of date, but what the hell, it should be okay. It’s basically sugar and sugar is a natural preservative and never goes off. Right? I hate throwing stuff out unless I really have to. It was a bit crystallised, but smelled fine. The heat of the oven should kill off any bugs. Right? I’ll let you know how the cake turns out, if it doesn’t poison us all. Reny is calling to pick Dick up later. I might test a slice on him first. Well, I must dash. The timer is ringing, so my cakey-poo must be ready. Later, peeps!
Sunday 3rd May 2015
It’s been a wet, grey and miserable Sunday here in my portion of Blighty today, but the sun is finally shining through and it looks like being a nice sunny evening.
My ginger cake turned out lovely. It was as light as a feather, moist and slightly sticky, but best of all it didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t mention to the men folk that I’d used an ingredient with a best before April 2014 date. I figured it was on a need to know basis. If any of us keeled over soon after eating, then I’d mention the out of date syrup to attending paramedics.
I served the cake up on Saturday evening for dessert topped with Häagen-Dazs Crème Brulée ice cream. It was an utterly divine combo. In fact, it was voted one of my best desserts ever. I swear to God that Shane got almost emotional when I offered him a second helping. He rarely accepts a second helping of pud. We polished off the cake and a full tub of ice cream between us. Shane gave me a playful swat afterwards and said he had a good mind to spank me for crimes against his waistline. It was a nice Saturday evening. I enjoyed it. We watched telly and just generally chilled together. It made up for not going out on Friday night. I did get a bad headache and ended up going to bed early. I still got my Daddy and boy one-to-one time. Shane came with me to provide comfort and cuddles to ease me through the pain.
I’ve had notes asking about the ‘plughole’ transgression. Honestly, you’re a nosy lot! Basically, it involved the kitchen plughole, which was stinking, and a bottle of stuff I bought from Aldi in an effort to get rid of the stink. The bottle of stuff promised to clear clogged plugholes and get rid of any nasty odour-causing gunk. Great! I bought it, took it home, opened it and poured it down the plughole; only it wasn’t a liquid as I’d imagined it would be. It was crystals, and they didn’t exactly slide down the plughole, they congregated and clogged. I figured some must have gone down into the U-bend and the rest would dissolve and follow. I left them as they were and went down to the summerhouse to do a bit of tidying. Half an hour later I suddenly became aware of a screeching noise coming from the direction of the house. I recognised it at once. It was the smoke alarm in the kitchen. I flew down the garden and back into the house, expecting to find flames shooting from some forgotten pan left on the stove. There was nothing of that ilk.
A crackling sound led me over to the kitchen sink. The crystals I’d left in the plughole were hissing and foaming and giving off a vapour along with a horrible chemical odour that made my nose and eyes sting and water. It was the vapour that had triggered the smoke alarm. It was hot, really hot. I put my hand above it and could feel the heat rising from the plughole. In a panic I turned on the cold tap to flush away the crystals. Horror of horrors! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The sink was all blackened and scorched. The bloody crystals had obviously been caustic, seriously caustic. They should never have been on sale to the general public. They were fucking powerful enough to dissolve a body, bones and all. Thank God I hadn’t gotten any on my hands.
I frantically cleaned the sink with some CIF cream, hoping it would remove all traces of my transgression. It removed some sooty residue, but did nothing to remove the scorch marks around the plughole. I was gutted. Shit! I’d recently wrecked a bath and now a sink. Shane would murder me. He certainly wasn’t best pleased. He unleashed some caustic scolding, accusing me of sheer carelessness. It was obvious, he said, that I hadn’t bothered to read the instructions on the bottle properly. I should have realised the product was a caustic. I was a fucking liability, more house wrecker than houseboy. The sink cleaner might not have burned me, but boy were my lugs burning by the time Daddy had done bawling me out.
Anyway, the sink was spoiled. We bought a new one. Shane fitted it himself, along with a new U-bend, which solved the pong problem.
Let it be a warning to you. If your sink stinks then don’t buy any cheap shit from Aldi. Call a plumber to rake out your grease-clogged U-bend. It’ll cost more, but be safer.
Tomorrow is the May Bank Holiday in Blighty. We three are spending it with Leo. He’s having a bit of a do. It should be nice.
As per, ta very much for all recent emails.
Ciao for now!
Update - Ginger cake recipe is on the recipe page for those who fancy having a go. Click here.
Monday 11th May 2015
Thought I’d pop in for a chat by way of distracting myself from the headache I can feel brewing. Headaches always make me nervous and when I’m nervous I talk more. I’d have popped over to Eileen’s for some sympathy and TLC, but she’s on some kind of pensioner’s away day with her church. I’ve taken painkillers and I’m hoping they do the biz and murder the pain before it attacks me any further. It’s just my luck. I’m due to have a Daddy and boy one-to-one night out with Shane tonight. We were going to go out for a cosy dinner together. Dick is going to some golf club committee event with indigestion man, Reny. I was looking forward to dinner with Shane. He’s been a bit cross with me of late, and not just because of the political rant thing (still don’t know what swine to cast my pearl of a vote at.) I was hoping a bit of intimate together time would wipe out my recent kitchen ‘plughole’ transgression and put me firmly back in his good books.
I’ve been baking this afternoon. I find that baking is sometimes a good mode of distraction when I’m trying to beat off a headache threat. I looked up a simple recipe for a ginger cake online. It’s in the oven now. It smells delish! I wanted to use up some golden syrup I found in the cupboard. It was a year out of date, but what the hell, it should be okay. It’s basically sugar and sugar is a natural preservative and never goes off. Right? I hate throwing stuff out unless I really have to. It was a bit crystallised, but smelled fine. The heat of the oven should kill off any bugs. Right? I’ll let you know how the cake turns out, if it doesn’t poison us all. Reny is calling to pick Dick up later. I might test a slice on him first. Well, I must dash. The timer is ringing, so my cakey-poo must be ready. Later, peeps!
Sunday 3rd May 2015
It’s been a wet, grey and miserable Sunday here in my portion of Blighty today, but the sun is finally shining through and it looks like being a nice sunny evening.
My ginger cake turned out lovely. It was as light as a feather, moist and slightly sticky, but best of all it didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t mention to the men folk that I’d used an ingredient with a best before April 2014 date. I figured it was on a need to know basis. If any of us keeled over soon after eating, then I’d mention the out of date syrup to attending paramedics.
I served the cake up on Saturday evening for dessert topped with Häagen-Dazs Crème Brulée ice cream. It was an utterly divine combo. In fact, it was voted one of my best desserts ever. I swear to God that Shane got almost emotional when I offered him a second helping. He rarely accepts a second helping of pud. We polished off the cake and a full tub of ice cream between us. Shane gave me a playful swat afterwards and said he had a good mind to spank me for crimes against his waistline. It was a nice Saturday evening. I enjoyed it. We watched telly and just generally chilled together. It made up for not going out on Friday night. I did get a bad headache and ended up going to bed early. I still got my Daddy and boy one-to-one time. Shane came with me to provide comfort and cuddles to ease me through the pain.
I’ve had notes asking about the ‘plughole’ transgression. Honestly, you’re a nosy lot! Basically, it involved the kitchen plughole, which was stinking, and a bottle of stuff I bought from Aldi in an effort to get rid of the stink. The bottle of stuff promised to clear clogged plugholes and get rid of any nasty odour-causing gunk. Great! I bought it, took it home, opened it and poured it down the plughole; only it wasn’t a liquid as I’d imagined it would be. It was crystals, and they didn’t exactly slide down the plughole, they congregated and clogged. I figured some must have gone down into the U-bend and the rest would dissolve and follow. I left them as they were and went down to the summerhouse to do a bit of tidying. Half an hour later I suddenly became aware of a screeching noise coming from the direction of the house. I recognised it at once. It was the smoke alarm in the kitchen. I flew down the garden and back into the house, expecting to find flames shooting from some forgotten pan left on the stove. There was nothing of that ilk.
A crackling sound led me over to the kitchen sink. The crystals I’d left in the plughole were hissing and foaming and giving off a vapour along with a horrible chemical odour that made my nose and eyes sting and water. It was the vapour that had triggered the smoke alarm. It was hot, really hot. I put my hand above it and could feel the heat rising from the plughole. In a panic I turned on the cold tap to flush away the crystals. Horror of horrors! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The sink was all blackened and scorched. The bloody crystals had obviously been caustic, seriously caustic. They should never have been on sale to the general public. They were fucking powerful enough to dissolve a body, bones and all. Thank God I hadn’t gotten any on my hands.
I frantically cleaned the sink with some CIF cream, hoping it would remove all traces of my transgression. It removed some sooty residue, but did nothing to remove the scorch marks around the plughole. I was gutted. Shit! I’d recently wrecked a bath and now a sink. Shane would murder me. He certainly wasn’t best pleased. He unleashed some caustic scolding, accusing me of sheer carelessness. It was obvious, he said, that I hadn’t bothered to read the instructions on the bottle properly. I should have realised the product was a caustic. I was a fucking liability, more house wrecker than houseboy. The sink cleaner might not have burned me, but boy were my lugs burning by the time Daddy had done bawling me out.
Anyway, the sink was spoiled. We bought a new one. Shane fitted it himself, along with a new U-bend, which solved the pong problem.
Let it be a warning to you. If your sink stinks then don’t buy any cheap shit from Aldi. Call a plumber to rake out your grease-clogged U-bend. It’ll cost more, but be safer.
Tomorrow is the May Bank Holiday in Blighty. We three are spending it with Leo. He’s having a bit of a do. It should be nice.
As per, ta very much for all recent emails.
Ciao for now!
Update - Ginger cake recipe is on the recipe page for those who fancy having a go. Click here.
Monday 11th May 2015
In answer to several recent queries:
yes, I have made a start on writing 'Revelations.' A start, however,
doesn't mean it will be finished any time soon. I'm working at it, as
and when I can, is all I can say. I've written a preface, and am working on a first chapter. Bear with me, folks!
Now, I've got stuff to do, other than chuntering here. We three are taking a holiday. I've got preps to make before we strike out into the wild blue yonder. You know my two, packing a case falls outside their job description as household dictators.
Ta mucho to everyone who has emailed, you're very kind for sharing your thoughts from around the world. You're all amazing.