I was sitting at the kitchen table late this morning, just settling comfortably into a post-espresso fugue state, gazing through the window at the antics of wild birds hopping on the flattened snow, competing for the tasty morsels I’d put out for them earlier [one blackbird was being very clever, tucking one foot up in the warmth of its feathers while hopping about on the other, then reversing] when the most dog-awful CRASH! behind me brought me back onto this planet quicker than the sad sigh with which exhausted elastic waistbands give up the ghost.
See, now that he’s done all the indoor work he can, Graham’s coping with our being shut in by cleaning house. Not just the house but things in it that have escaped cleaning for a long, long time, if ever. My coffee cup had disappeared ages before, and the table had been wiped over at least twice.
“You’ll have to move in a bit because I want to wash the kitchen floor,” he said. Note that want. It’s genuine, and apposite. Other people might need to wash the kitchen floor. Graham wants to do it. And enjoys it heartily. Understand that and you’re a long way to understanding Graham.
“But before I do that I want to sort out this oven door. Filthy, it is.”
There was no discernible interval between his saying that and the loud CRASH! that brought me back to earth. The outer oven door had detached itself and smashed to the tiled floor, exploding little bits of glass in all directions.
It’s alright. He wasn’t hurt. Dolly was upstairs, sound asleep and she was so not hurt I doubt if she was in any way aware of the disaster that had struck.
So, I made hot, soothing tea. Tea is always good for the shock of a shocking moment. Graham fetched a big soft broom in from the garage. I was banished to my study. Graham set to the task of clearing up the fragments of glass, putting them in a cardboard box inside a plastic bag ready for the binmen to take away, vacuuming the kitchen, hallway and study floors, and then giving the kitchen floor a good scrubbing.
The disaster isn’t really a disaster except that we’ll have to replace the oven as soon as we can, and then rip it all out again when we remodel the kitchen next year. That’s an expense we’re trying very, very hard to justify. We’ll be racking our poor brains to find a solution to that one.
And then, eventually, we had lunch, watched part of a truly bad re-make of King Solomon’s Mines, with Richard Chamberlain playing an unconvincing Alan Quartermain, and off I toddled for my map, promising I’d ‘consult my pillow’ on our problem.
“You come up with a miracle solution, then?” Graham asked when I staggered down for my post-nap coffee.
“Nope. Not yet. I’m afraid it’s going to take two or even three sessions of pillow consultation.”
“Bad as that, eh? We’ll both of us have to work on it, then.”
“Probably just as well. You know what they say about two heads.”
“No. What do they say?”
“I don’t really know for the moment. All I do know is that if I don’t get some coffee in my poor head PDQ I shall have to hit something. Hard.”
