What does your fridge door look like I wonder? Whilst giving the vegetable tray a new lease of life this afternoon I realised it wasn’t just the inside of the Bosch that was in need of a Spring clean. The front and both sides are covered in multifarious stickers, magnets, photos, magnets holding photos, magnets with letters on, magnets with numbers on, magnets displaying tacky memorabilia of distant lands that we have been lucky enough to visit and magnetised photo frames with pictures of far distant lands that…etc. No doubt the back would also be so adorned if it wasn’t wedged up against the wall, thereby allowing ingress and egress through the doorway that separates our tiny kitchen from the rest of our extremely modest accommodation. There’s actually a little more room than I realised when we first measured up before moving, because I miscalculated how the marble top dresser would fit in with the dishwasher and unnecessarily sold our lovely extra large fridge whilst keeping the smaller one. (We were downsizing from two houses, which isn’t as fiscally exciting as it might sound). It has been a source of marital irritation ever since….as you might imagine. Anyway, the stickers; if memory serves me right and there is absolutely no guarantee of that, the white kitchen units of my youth, including the Frigidaire, were extensively white, unsullied by all the modern trappings. I suppose it was a waste of useful space. Sadly, I cannot now even begin to hazard a guess when the first Fridge Art started to appear, but on the whole I think it has been a tremendous addition to our daily lives. It means there is somewhere to put all those envy-inducing postcards from tropical holidaying mates, other than the waste bin. Somewhere to stick the cheesy group photos of friends and their children, which you really don’t want to throw away, but know you will never look at from one year to the next if you put them in the “not sure what to do with this” drawer. Then of course there are all those clever little magnets with philosophical sayings or erudite witticisms that I can never remember, like “If at first you don’t succeed then skydiving isn’t for you” or “My husband needs glasses….he still doesn’t see things my way”. Where, for heavens sake, would we put the children’s incredibly complicated daily schedules, or the council’s bin collection dates, or the equivalents for solids and liquids, or the landscape gardeners card, or…… and so on. I think my favourites amongst this ocean of innovation though are the magnetic letters of the alphabet that allow you to display your potential for Scrabbler of the Month with an ever changing pattern of clever words your children have never heard of. That is the ,longest paragraph I have written in eighty four blogs. My English teacher wife would undoubtedly tut tut.
New par. Sadly, the veggie tray cleansing took so long I had to go and sit down for a rest in front of Ski Sunday and by the time I had finished reminiscing (I commentated on Ski Sunday for thirteen years, just in case I hadn’t mentioned it before) any thoughts of re-organising the chaotic assembly of trivia that now decorates our fridge had completely left my mind. Anyway, there were greater priorities to be actioned, such as visiting Boots and Sainsbury’s to re-stock the aforementioned ice box, as well as purchasing four important requests for Mrs T; her special brand of Colgate toothpaste, some smoked paprika, mixed spices and wholegrain bagels. Sunday shopping is never high on my agenda at the best of times and it may well be that it is the first Sunday in my life where I have been to Boots. Having queued lengthily for advice on a simple medical aid that I needed, only to discover they didn’t stock it, I went in search of Alison’s special toothpaste. Remarkably quickly I discovered the right shelf, which was stuffed full of various familiar names in the dental hygiene firmament including Colgate. Aha, this should be simple. Impressively, I had memorised the required edition and would surely find it in seconds. Unbelievably there were sixteen (at least, I may have slightly miscounted) variations of Colgate stacked on three shelves. Still, with this selection it had to be there somewhere. A cursory glance failed. A more detailed study failed again. Now it was carefully examine every box. Nope, it definitely wasn’t there. Remembering what one should do nowadays, I whipped out the phone/camera, took a clever photo of the whole assembly and What’s App’d it to my dog-walking wife for further instructions. Awaiting the response I wandered off in search of anything and happened upon some obviously good (very expensive) blister protectors which I thought would help my newly shoed and heel-blistered son. With no response on the paste front it was off to pay for the blister stuff. Still only one young female sales assistant, who was making very heavy weather of reducing the queue that I dutifully joined. What’s happening now? She’s buggered off to help a typical Eastbourne resident find where the aspirin is shelved. With much muttering between the strangers waiting to pay and a growing sense of angst I finally made my first purchase. Time for Sainsbury’s thinks I and was heading out of Boots at the very moment What’s App lights up with the somewhat overdue intelligence that this specialist toothpaste is kept on shelves in another aisle. Greeting this info with extreme scepticism I duly found the bloody stuff in an instant. Could I in all honesty claim they didn’t have it? Nope, it was back into the queue and blow me down I was just about to reach the front when off the dumb blonde (ok in fairness she wasn’t that dumb but was certainly blonde, well blonde in appearance anyway) disappears again to help another deaf, blind and motorised octogenarian find something one aisle away, which then necessitated her having a lengthy discussion with a colleague (about the weather probably) which was her excuse for absence when I finally blew my cool and told her they were encouraging shop-lifting with their inefficiency and lack of customer care. She didn’t respond well.
Finally I had almost completed the required Sainsbury’s shop with just the bagels and spice to go. No wholemeal sadly, but some mixed grain which looked nice. I risked the wrath of the Boss. Just mixed spices to find and it was back to the toothpaste routine with a vast array of bottles offering everything from cumin to mixed herbs. A significant number of labels were facing inwards so that involved turning numerous bottles around only to be disappointed. At last, with temper barely controlled the Ground Mixed Spices showed themselves. Halle-bloody-lujah.
In case I haven’t secured your sympathy so far, my day also included shuttling my son to golf and back, stripping the beds, doing three washes and hanging out and ,to add insult to injury, cooking my own supper. Mind you I do that everyday anyway, so it didn’t come as a great surprise. My clean sheets await.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 