Mobile Phone Drowns

As always on these auspicious occasions, I welcome a new follower ‘A Woman of No Importance’ from Hope in Derbyshire. I wish you many happy visits ma’am. By coincidence, I spent a week when I was 11 on a school trip to Hope in Derbyshire where we stayed at a youth hostel for a very memorable and enjoyable holiday, my first away from my parents. This blogger describes herself as “Blogger, fictional heroine, fledgling psychotherapist, trying author, slattern, sloth and demi-mondaine Twitterer! I enjoy crying into strawberry beer and helping old ladies reach stuff off the top shelves in supermarkets... I'm the Queen of All Chaos.” Her informative and entertaining blog can be found by clicking here.

Well the day started well; I got out of bed okay, navigated through the bathroom, kitchen, urban roads through the fog and to work and from then on – it went downhill.

The Christmas tree lights in the office don’t work and the canteen only offered all day breakfasts so no decent dinner. I volunteered before Christmas to help a colleague clean the two fridges in the little kitchen we have for making hot drinks and microwaving meals. Just after the meagre lunch of quiche, bacon and mushrooms, Tammy cleaned the shelves and trays and I scrubbed the insides of the fridges which in the main were fairly disgusting after people who had spilt milk had not cleaned up after them. Sundry items of mouldy food and out of date milk were thrown away – gently!

Tammy provided me with a bucket of hot water and disinfectant which I started to scrub away with. Only, as I bent down to plunge the cloth into the water, my mobile phone slipped out of my shirt breast pocket and PLOP! It disappeared into (admittedly clean and hot) water. Despite it being fished out in about three seconds flat, it died on me.

I’ve been drying it out on a hot radiator and getting as much water out of the accessible nooks and crannies, but it is now doing stupid things and the display is hardly readable through mist hidden behind the screen.

The hardest thing has been trying to extract my contact lists – nightmare! Ah well it’ll be alright on the night.

Never mind – the fridges are now spotless!

One of the treats of this time of year is the roasted chestnut and unlike the Christmas song, they are done in a hot oven (220 degrees) for 20 minutes rather than on an open fire. When I was a kid, however, the chestnuts were roasted on a shovel under the dog grate upon which sat the roaring coal fire, probably only taking five minutes in that massive heat. Black fingernails from peeling the brittle skin and burning fingers revealing the nut inside is still a pain in the neck – but the taste is worth it.

Chestnuts can be bought at our Hull Fair in an October – a few nuts in a small cone for a couple of quid – not good value for money, but a sort of tradition. The picture above shows a serving for three by the way – not all for me!

The weather by the way is relatively balmy at an incredible 5 degrees plus today, but the thaw and moisture in the air has bought all day and all night fogs.

Chat soon

Ta-ra