5 October 2010 (Tuesday) - Crumble, Carpet


Normally I’m not too late to bed when there’s work the next day, but last night I made an exception. “My Boy TMcame crashing through the front door at 10.30pm having been doing some late night scrumping. He had more apples than sense, and loudly announced that he was going to make an apple crumble. There was a frantic clattering in the kitchen for ten minutes, and then he bellowed up the stairs asking how one actually makes an apple crumble. Being somewhat vague on the subject myself I suggested he peeled the apples, stewed them and then baked them under some light pastry.
He seemed happy with this idea and went back to his crashing about, but after five minutes he roared up the stairs to ask how vital the peeling was: he’d lost interest in peeling the apples. I wasn’t going to peel them for him, so I suggested he leapt straight to the stewing stage. He asked how one stewed apples. I don’t know why he thought I was the culinary genius. I told him that it was like stew but without the dumplings. Then he bellowed up the stairs. Would I turn the taps for him because he had got raw pastry on his hands. I say “pastry” – he’d bodged something out of milk and a tub of Utterly Butterly and he wanted to wash his hands before rolling it out. I hadn’t the heart to tell him I didn’t think we had a rolling pin. He soon found out this sad fact for himself, but improvised with a can of underarm deodorant. Judging by the noise, there was then a most enthusiastic bout of washing up, and then our thoughts turned to custard. I’ve never heard custard cooked quite so loudly before, but he confidently boasted that it was going to look like custard, so I must admit my hopes were high.
Eventually he dished up shortly after midnight. Surprisingly the apple crumble and custard was worth the wait. Mind you, this episode probably explains why I spent today feeling very tired and with a nagging guts ache. And talking of nagging guts aches, I popped up to see Glenn today. Having had his appendix out last week, he’s now back in hospital with complications. I didn’t actually get to see him – when I visited he was actually in the operating theatre. So I chatted with Sue for a bit before making my excuses and coming home. I would have liked to have stayed and waited for him, but if I was coming out of surgery I wouldn’t want to have me visiting. And also I knew the Rear Admiral would be at home, and I had this plan that he could help me lay my new bit of carpet.

Laying the carpet was painless enough: we hoiked up the old carpet, hovered round, laid down newspaper and the put the new carpet down on the newspaper. I’m not sure what the newspaper was all about, but whenever I’ve lifted up carpet, there’s always been newspaper underneath it. Perhaps it’s the rules: I don’t know. But who am I to break with tradition?

And then for the Tuesday gathering. This time at Matt’s where we say a “Duncan Norvelle” train set in which two digital toy trains were playing “chase me!” There was also talk of a Dorian Grey basement, but after the train set, all else pales into insignificance…



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