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Any Old Pots and Pans?
Following on from the successful installation of our new front door (which my wife is now quite happy with), we now have new stainless steel pots and pans to replace the old and “dangerous” non-stick pans we had before.
My wife “read something on the internet” which said that the non-stick coatings are toxic, and so that that was the end of the matter.
Still, they are very nice new pans, even if a little more care is needed when using them to cook and clean.
Frank
Frank was my great grandfather on my dad’s side.
I only met him a couple of times. One time, me and my brother were made to wear the most ridiculous and embarrassing outfits, and we just felt very uncomfortable and ill-at-ease meeting this very old man from another time.
He was born in the early 1901. So he must have been 80 or so when we met him. Not so old these days, but back then he really was like a dinosaur, or a fossil.
I remember a couple of stories about him. After the Great War, when he was a young man with a new wife and baby daughter (my grandmother), he had to walk twenty-five miles to work, where he would labour hard for sixteen hours before walking home again, only to be brutally murdered by his father before going to bed and getting up the next morning to do the same thing over and over again. Well, he certainly had to work hard, just to survive and raise a family.
Life was no doubt much harder then than any of us can really imagine, but you try and tell that to the young people of today. Would they believe you? No!
My great grandmother, Ellen, was committed to Lancaster Asylum some time after my grandmother Freda was born. I don’t know what the reason was, but it’s possible it was because she was suffering from what would now be recognised as post-natal depression.
In those days, it was a life sentence, not to mention the shame it brought upon the family.
Frank divorced Ellen and married “Auntie Florrie”. I don’t know if Florrie was actually Ellen’s sister, but it’s possible.
Freda never forgot her mum, and secretly visited her whenever she could.
When Frank got the cancer that would kill him, Freda took him in and looked after him in her bed until he died.
Getting Dressed
My three and a half year old is going through that stage where he doesn’t want to get dressed in the morning to go to nursery.
I remember with my oldest lad some mornings I used to be in tears trying to get him ready.
Fortunately, their mum is now working from home and has taken on this task with the little one. My main job now is to remind my nine year old to “sit at the table and eat your breakfast” every two minutes.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, my secondary role was as assistant little kid dresser. I would sit him on my knee with one arm around his chest holding his arms down, while trying to hold a leg or a foot so that his mum could forcibly put on his underpants, socks and trousers without him kicking or pulling them off again.
Mum has now found a much more kid-friendly method, with no tears.
Underpants are now butterflies, fluttering around looking for somewhere to land. Socks, of course, make great foot-puppets. Trousers are caterpillars crawling on a tree branch, and his coat is a big brown bear who just wants a hug.
It’s still exhausting, but it makes the morning a little bit happier for everyone.
Too Much Pressure
Inevitably, as I sit here in the cafe next to my son’s swimming lesson, unable to drink coffee because the cafe is permanently closed, my mind wanders and starts thinking about coffee.
For most of my adult life, I’ve started the day with a cup of tea. Regular English breakfast tea. PG Tips, Tetley. Milk and sugar.
Tea was always my preferred drink, but I did like a cup of instant coffee or two later in the morning, but only if it was one I liked. I wasn’t fond of Nescafe or the other regular blends.
A few years ago, I switched to Rooibos (redbush) tea, and never went back. I also started appreciating real coffee made in a French press, and later got my own Aeropress. What really sealed the coffee deal, was discovering fresh coffee beans that aren’t burnt (Pact Coffee).
About three years ago, I backed a Kickstarter campaign to build an affordable, portable espresso maker, CoffeeJack.
Now, I’m not one of those people who backs a lot of these types of things, although it wasn’t my first or last. I understand that it’s not like ordering from Amazon or anywhere else. You’re backing a project with money in the hope that it’s successful and that you end up with a product that works as described. There’s no guarantee.
Now, CoffeeJack delivered about three years after they got my money. Which is a long time! They had lots of problems along the way, including, of course, the covid pandemic. So fair play to them for getting their project finished at all. And it was worth the wait, in my opinion. They produced exactly what they promised, and for six months I had two cups a day of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.
Sadly, just when I thought I’d cracked it, I cracked the bayonet on my CoffeeJack. Too much pressure, to quote The Selector.
Play Street
We used to play in the street outside our home as kids growing up in the 70s. In rural Lincolnshire. Of course, it wasn’t a main road, it was the road on our council estate. Pretty much everyone had a car, and many of the houses had their own garage.
In London, or Greater London, it’s generally not safe for kids to play in the street, although we’re lucky where we are that our little cul-de-sac can double-up as a relatively safe enough play area most of the time.
The road next to us is an HGV Access Road, thanks to our local ward councillor and current council leader.
It’s definitely NOT safe for kids to play in at all.
Not until the Water Company came along. For the past two or three weeks, they have closed part of the road where my sons’ friends live to clear the pipes of wet wipes, sanitary products, fat and oil.
They’ve dug a massive hole in the road, which I’ve told my nine year old is The Pit of Tartarus. It’s all barricaded off, with heavy machinery, waste skips and various bits of equipment.
So the road is now a no through road, with access only for residents and deliveries.
My kids and their friends have really enjoyed playing out in the street whenever they can, thanks also to our “Indian Summer”.
Of course, there are plenty of drivers who ignore (or don’t see?) the signs telling them the road is closed, and drive down it anyway. My job was mostly to tell them, “No, you can’t drive on the pavement. Can’t you see there are kids playing? Plus, it’s a pavement. This isn’t the Wild West!”
Fortunately, everyone was reasonable enough when challenged to back away, turnaround and drive around following the “diverted traffic” signs.
Thankfully, my job was made redundant by the older kids in the group, who took it upon themselves to relieve me of my onerous duties. They barricaded the pavements with spare cones, and now they marshall the traffic. Much more effective!
Distraction
It’s easy to get distracted.
My nine year old told his mum last night that he was so distracted by thoughts in his head at school that the teacher gave him a blank piece of paper and a pen to “download” everything in his mind.
All he could think about was Super Mario and Nintendo.
Well, it was Maths.
I always liked Maths at school. Mainly because there was no homework, or writing, or revision to do. Either I knew it or I didn’t. And I mostly did, up until A Levels.
My “Pure Maths” teacher told me I would never amount to anything. I guess he was right about that.
My “Applied Maths” teacher tried to make lessons more memorable by telling us a story about a man who grew jellies in his garden. I guess he was right about that.
I got a B grade in O Level Maths. If I’d actually made any kind of effort I could probably have got an A. Things could have been oh so different!
The Swimmer
My nine year old is on week three of his school swimming lessons.
Prior to the first lesson, he was very anxious about getting his hair wet, and getting his nose under the water. This, despite the fact that he absolutely loved the sea and the pool on our holiday last month (and last year, and the year before that).
We bought him a swimming cap, which everyone has to wear in any case. He’s got massive natural afro hair, so the first three swimming caps we bought were too small.
He was very anxious about putting on his swimming cap for the lessons. I said I would help him, as I would be there, but of course, that never happened as they all just marched straight into the changing rooms leaving me alone with my coffee-free café.
Fortunately, one of the teaching staff helps him with his cap.
So he keeps his hair dry. And after the second lesson last week, he came home and informed us that:
- he put his nose under the water and survived
- he wants to go swimming at the weekend
- he wants a swimming “noodle”.
Bolognese!
Last week, we had a new front door fitted.
That morning, I took it upon myself to prepare a bolognese before the doormen arrived so that we didn’t need to get in each other’s way, and so that we had something to eat for lunch for the next few days.
I make my bolognese in a 12" frying pan and cover it with a grease splatter fine mesh to let it cook slowly for a few hours. When the doormen arrived, that’s exactly what my bolognese was doing.
What I didn’t realise, until it was too late, is that the dust from their drilling and general doormen work was settling on the stove top in front of my bolognese on the back of the stove.
This was brought to my attention by my wife, who was already in a state of being very upset by the new door hanging to the right and not the left like her old door.
I inspected the bolognese and the splatter mesh cover carefully for signs of white paint dust similar the to very evident white paint dust sitting on top of the stove.
I honestly couldn’t see anything, although the bolognese did have quite a sheen (although this was after I’d just added some milk to it).
Anyway, my wife refused to eat it, so I had no choice, really, but to eat all of it over the next four days.
If anything, it tasted a bit spicier than normal, not in a bad way, and I have not grown any extra fingers, yet.
The Door
The door was old, but it still functioned as a door. It opened and closed, and kept us safe and warm.
As it got older, it got a bit cranky and quirky.
The spring-loaded closing mechanism no longer worked as it should. If you were a small person, a cat or a delivery driver, you had to beware this big old heavy door slamming shut whether you were in, out, or somewhere in between.
Sometimes the lock wouldn’t work at all and you had to hope there was someone inside who would let you in. Mostly, it required a certain knack to unlock it. Which kept kids out, and ensured extra exercise for grown-ups getting up off the sofa to let kids in.
One day, the housing association’s sub-contractors came to take our door away. It was a fire safety hazard, according to a very expensive risk assessment they carried out several years ago in the wake of the Grenfell Fire.
They came, they saw(ed), they removed our old door in five minutes flat, leaving a gaping hole.
The new door is sleek and fancy.
“It’s a like for like replacement,” they said.
“Hmmm… the handle is on the right hand side,” I said.
“And the door opens to the left not the right.”
“I’m very unhappy,” said my wife.
“It’s not magnetic,” said my nine year old.
“Where’s they keyhole?” my three year old didn’t say, but the question must surely have been going through his mind as he tried to unlock the door on the wrong (right) side with the new key.
