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Domestic disasters !
Feeling too knackered to do anything more physically challenging than hang around here (hey not that bad folks :) ) ! So I thought I'd see who has had a more exciting domestic life than me recently. We have been working hard at the domestic challenge to make life pleasanter in this chilly weather.
I made lentil and bacon soup last week and even did home-made bread to go with it (Sir or HWMBO (He Who Must Be Obeyed) normally does the bread). All excellent. Had to use the flat shelf, which usually lives in the bottom Rayburn oven, in the top hot oven to stop the bread burning.
Yesterday we put a snake and pygmy pud on to steam on top of the Rayburn and then had to dash out so we left it to "stew" slowly which prolly wasn't the best thing that we could do but at least my best Le Creuset didn't get boiled dry. So that bit was OK but the Rayburn was turned up high for about 6 hours.
Our latest log delivery was quite green and wet so I have been drying the logs in the bottom oven prior to splitting. They work much better that way. Unfortunately, (not as well written but does this remind you of Gerard Hoffnung The Bricklayer's Lament ?) I had forgotten about the logs in the bottom oven, without the insulation of the flat shelf. So when I opened the oven I was met by some logs not just smouldering but bursting happily into flame ! The smell ain't too good eiver ! Put worst log directly onto the fire, cooled the rest with water (thank goodness for a slate floor) and opened the windows. HWMBO was not impressed. If I lived nearer to a good take-away I think I might be opting for it !
Anyone had a good, or even exciting, time domestically ?
(BTW if you haven't heard Gerard Hoffnung's tale, Google for it - tis about on YouTube etc - quite side-stitching !)
I made lentil and bacon soup last week and even did home-made bread to go with it (Sir or HWMBO (He Who Must Be Obeyed) normally does the bread). All excellent. Had to use the flat shelf, which usually lives in the bottom Rayburn oven, in the top hot oven to stop the bread burning.
Yesterday we put a snake and pygmy pud on to steam on top of the Rayburn and then had to dash out so we left it to "stew" slowly which prolly wasn't the best thing that we could do but at least my best Le Creuset didn't get boiled dry. So that bit was OK but the Rayburn was turned up high for about 6 hours.
Our latest log delivery was quite green and wet so I have been drying the logs in the bottom oven prior to splitting. They work much better that way. Unfortunately, (not as well written but does this remind you of Gerard Hoffnung The Bricklayer's Lament ?) I had forgotten about the logs in the bottom oven, without the insulation of the flat shelf. So when I opened the oven I was met by some logs not just smouldering but bursting happily into flame ! The smell ain't too good eiver ! Put worst log directly onto the fire, cooled the rest with water (thank goodness for a slate floor) and opened the windows. HWMBO was not impressed. If I lived nearer to a good take-away I think I might be opting for it !
Anyone had a good, or even exciting, time domestically ?
(BTW if you haven't heard Gerard Hoffnung's tale, Google for it - tis about on YouTube etc - quite side-stitching !)
Comments
Before throwing some granary bread out for the birds, I broke it up, put it in a colander, ran cold water over it and drained it.
I stood at the back door, intending to send the bread high and wide over the garden. I held the colander up and gave it a flick that any tennis player would have been proud of.
The wet bread flew out of the colander, hit the top of the door frame and landed on my head.
hilarious :)
Our oven door smashed a little while ago when OH shut it - not that hard! i had to order a new one (more than £80) and then fit it, and found that I had to take bits off the old one, still with lots of sharp glass on, to fit onto the new one. Then found it was fixed on with strange screws with star shaped heads I'd never see before, and had to borrow a strange star shaped screwdriver with bits to fit the darn thing.
Apart from that, the shower leaked some time ago. So we had to have it all taken apart, and the tiles were ruined, so they had to be replaced, so they don't match with the ones over the other side of the bathroom. So the tiles over the other side of the bathrrom have to be replaced, but that means removing the iron, freestanding bath. Then we have marmoleum floor, which has a crack in it and needs replacing. Since we will probably not have the opportunity ever again to have the bath out to replace the floor, we are having to get that done at the same time. And I can't decide whether to have the same (marmoleum) or vinyl (£200 cheaper) as we do really like marmoleum, which is green etc but are worried the same thing will happen.
So I have come to a standstill and the plumber is waiting in the wings.
Not as exciting or as funny as you lot though.
Of course, I haven't owned up it was me that broke it.
Liz - were you extra hungry that day?
It was in her ear hole
Should've seen the wax it brought out - yeeek, you could grow potatoes in those ears
How do you stop them going all lumpy and horrible ? That's all that ever happens if I wash 'em.
And I don't wash duvets, I throw them out when they get thin. They're cheap enough.
My washing machine wouldn't take ours, they would have to go to the launderette or dry cleaners and I ain't doing that!
For reasons of planetary health I don't have a tumble dryer, and similarly would never have anything dry-cleaned, and anyway wouldn't as chemicals in the bed are not a good idea.
Actually, we only have a duvet in our daughter's room now she's left home, so it's seldom used. Sheets and blankets are easy to wash, and we have those in all the other rooms. And if you are sweating, you can throw one layer off...
I bought the buckwheat hulls one because it said it was cool especially for people with headache problems or some such, the most important thing is, it moulds to the head instantly. I love it, even if it does rustle ever so slightly, that's comforting in its own way.
I get clothes dry cleaned but not bedding and have no space here for a tumble dryer, no window outlet for the steam. We have enough problems with steam, we had an extractor fan fitted (to try and save the ceiling) (no windows to open in our kitchen...) which has been labelled 'the distractor fan' because of the noise it makes.
When we moved, my daughter said she wanted a kitchen window no one could look in (because in our old house the kitchen was on the front and everyone stared in) a garden gate (we have that) and a window seat (where she got that from, I don't know, but she got that too.)
Now she wants a quiet location, lower ceilings (we have the soaring Victorian ones!) and a kitchen window that opens ...
oh and a garden where she can have a clothes line. (We have a courtyard... cemented over ...)
I'm sorry Jenny but that image did make me laugh :D
A recent domestic disaster of my mums was when she was supposed to be making a cake. When she took it out of the oven though it looked very strange. It had almost like coated the cake tin and not risen at all. And we couldn't work out what had happened...she started blaming the oven...until she later remembered that she had forgotten to put the flour in!!! No wonder it the cake wouldn't rise...there was nothing to rise!
When I was at uni I opened a kitchen cupboard and half of its contents fell out, a glass broke, a bowl got cracked but I thought that was all. Until I made a cup of tea and realised that the cup was getting emptier and the work surface was getting wetter.
Take pillow out of the washer as soon as it has stopped.
Take the pillow by the corner. swing it and bash it. when I say bash it, I mean a bit like when you have put a duvet in a new cover and are trying to straighten it inside the cover.
I bash the pillow against my legs. Then turn it up the other way and to the same.
Then turn it lengthways and do the same.
In extreme cases, I have snipped a corner of the pillow case, reached in and straightened it.
To dry them I put it on the airer, as close to the radiator as possible, keep turning it. Sometimes put it on the radiator and keep turning it.
I have neither a tumble dryer nor tennis balls, but a friend of mine who washes 'down filled' clothing tells me the balls bash the feathering about and loosen everything back into nice fluffosity again.
PS I hope that's not OWL feathers in your pillows ...
[quote=dorothyd]And I don't wash duvets, I throw them out when they get thin. They're cheap enough.[/quote]
Glad you have said that, dorothy. I have felt rather extravagant about throwing duvets out. But I do use them for the dogs baskets before they end up in the bin !
dora - I think there ought to be a health warning on your pillow washing /drying. I would be black and blue with bruises with all that bashing on the legs ! (I throw pillows to the dogs and then the bin too )
I can't afford to throw out duvets.
You just have to touch me and I come out in a bruise - it's the aspirin, they tell me.
My memory foam pillows are hard enough to break your leg, never mind bruise it ;)
[quote=Jenny] Whenever I've washed the other sort - no matter how expensive they were and what the labels said - the filling went lumpy.[/quote]
Like dora I shake em into shape as soon as they come out of the machine. I dry them in the tumble dryer occasionally, but have dried them quite well on the line, as well.
To get them into shape, hold the two corners on one narrow end and shake like billy oh until the filling has settled into its normal place, then bash it a bit as you normally do when you fluff them up, then let dry. If indoors or on line periodically give em another bashing!
As for my own domestic disasters, here goes:
Making savoury mince some years ago I opened the cupboard, got out the round white tupperware container and put some white powder in to thicken it. Didn't seem to work, so added poem more. Still didn't work, so gave up and put container back. That's when I realised it WASN'T the one with cornflour! Yup. I'd tried to thicken my savoury mince with icing sugar! Too poor at the time to chuck it we had to eat it. It tasted different. YUK!
Another time I had been doing some dyeing in one of the saucepans - bright red dye.I had washed the saucepan several times and thought it was OK to boil the spuds in when my ex hubby's aunt, uncle and his two cousins turned up unexpectedly. As it was I had to serve spam, as that was all we had and I thought mashed potatoes, spam fritters and peas would be lovely. And so it would have been if the spuds hadn't turned pink, in spite of several changes of water, during the cooking!
I'm just wondering what the dogs think when Lexia throws the bin to them!
Dum, de dum: 'Don't dig there, dig it elsewhere, you're diggin' it round when it oughta be square . . . . '
And it finishes with: "And beneath it is a bloke in a bowler hat"!!
There I was digging a hole, hole in the ground, so big and sort of round it was and there was I digging it deep, it was flat at the bottom and the sides were steep. when along comes a bloke in a bowler, which he lifted and scratched his head. he looked in the hole, poor demented soul and he said 'mind if I make a suggestion?' Don't dig there, dig it elsewhere. you're digging it round and it oughta be square, the shape of it's wrong, it's much too long and you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong.. can't remember the rest of it properly
Had a disaster today. Burst pipe on the outside tap. Fortunately, we have two mains water valves so have turned that one off (after a bout of cussing and huffing and puffing, as the tap part of the valve was solid - hadn't been used for years!!!!) will need to have a new piece of pipe put on but think Pete will do that for me. It was him that freed the mains tap and managed to turn it off. Just can't use utility and downstairs loo for the moment.
My mum was making something for tea (dinner) in her slow cooker. It takes 6-8 hours to cook.
I got home from work at about 5.15pm and asked my sister what time tea would be ready - she said at twenty to six.
I fed the dog, went and got changed and then returned to the kitchen.
'That's funny,' I said to myself. 'The slow cooker doesn't seem to be giving off much heat like it usually does.'
Then I said to my sister 'How can it be ready at twenty to if it isn't plugged in?'
'WHAT?!?!' was the reply I had got.
It seems that my mum had switched it on for about an hour then at dinner (lunch) my dad and sister unplugged it to use the microwave and forgot to plug the slow cooker back in afterwards.
So to avoid having our tea at 11pm we had baked potatoes - they were actually very scrummy potatoes in the end. And we had the slow cooker extravaganza today instead.