The absence of a bin
I haven’t blogged for a while because other than being slack and lazy I’ve been flat sitting for some friends. They live in a beautiful one bedroom flat and I’ve been having and amazing time having space to MYSELF. When you have to move back in with your parents, getting your own space for a while is absolute bliss. It’s turned me into a hermit actually – I don’t want to go out – want to stay in the lovely flat. I go on holiday in a couple of days for a fortnight and then I’m back with the parents again. That’s gonna be a bit gross.
So anyway, I went up to dinner with the parents today…which gave me some inspiration for this blog. Washing up afterwards I realised I’d forgotten to tell you about my mother’s thing with the bin.
The thing is, my parents don’t have a bin in the kitchen because my mother does not want one. She does not want one because she believes bins in kitchens are unhygienic. I do not know where on earth she’s got this warped logic from – I mean surely, a having a bin to put rubbish in is more hygienic than not having one – so the rubbish just sits on the side? what? what? what?
There is a makeshift bin which is actually any plastic bag you can find which hangs on a cupboard door. This gets knocked whenever you open a one of the draws next to the cupboard door. This is extremely irritating because it does not work. What is even more ridiculous is that being environmentally aware my parents take reusable bags to the supermarket. This is great in terms of saving plastic bags but not when it comes to saving their kitchen. If there are not plastic bags around what are we going to do with all this rubbish?
I think the best course of action is to get back from holiday and buy a bloody bin. Just stick it in the kitchen -’not liking bins’ is not going to be acceptable anymore.
Getting round to things…
One problem with this house seems to be the in ability to get round to the simplest of tasks. I’m quite amazed at how the kitchen has managed to function so long without adequate lighting, a proper grill or a secure back door.
About three years ago the grill pan of my parent’s new cooker disappeared – apparently ‘something happened to it’ (couldn’t get anything more specific than that I’m afraid) so it was replaced by the old grill pan. The problem with it is though that is doesn’t actually fit properly. When making toast you have to force the pan into the grill and it often slants upwards which results in half burnt toast.
Then there are the lights that stand in the centre that are all quite dull and seem to have been designed to focus on one place – which is the floor. You can’t really see what you’re doing after dark when washing up in the sink.
The back door however is the most worrying. There are three key holes. Two of the keys have been lost so only the top one is used and a shelf bracket is wedged under the bottom of the door for an extra security measure. . I have tried pointing all these things out – that it might be useful to buy a NEW grill pan so we can stop burning things; how it maybe a good idea to get a locksmith so we can use all the locks to make the actual house secure and the lighting…well actually they don’t agree about the lighting but the truth is they already know. There domestic capabilities are somewhere on the floor.
The thing that worries me is how much influence this is having on me. This is my first post in two and a half weeks…
The Roux Sauce debacle
Father is making Lasagne. He is quite good at Lasagne actually but he does have issues with Roux sauce (or is it Béchamel? anyway). He doesn’t like making the cheesy sauce because it gets lumps in it and he panics. Make it slowly I say, add the liquid in gradually. So the butter goes in, then the flour, then all the milk and… oh look! Lots of lumps! So father stirs and stirs ..’Kizzie! the lumps! They won’t go away!’ The lumps refuse to go – they are not blending in with the sauce so matter what. I suggest he gets a sieve and pour out the lumps…’oh good idea, thanks’. Off the goes to the sink, pours the sauce into the sieve, the sauce goes into the sink, down the plughole and there are the lumps in the sieve starring at him. Oh Shit. I put my apron on.
