Another autocorrect mishap caused by my inability to monitor what my phone is doing against my will.

What a concept though, “fucking the sad”.  I’d like to think that most of my sexual encounters have been because I’m clearly highly desirable, rather than because people have taken pity on me.

And that’s probably best left there.

I was indeed going to roast a chicken today. It was my plan for October bank holiday Monday, however, given the pain of cleaning the oven after cooking a roast in it, added to Rocky going into meltdown every time there’s the remotest chance of atmospheric particulates hitting any one of my three smoke alarms, I decided against taking the thing from the freezer and went for the safer option of making spicy butternut squash soup instead. [Cue food photo opp]…

I even adorned it with a swirl of olive oil.  Get me.

Ovens

Anyway.  I decided against the chicken because roasting anything means cleaning the oven afterwards (plus the trauma inflicted on the little dog whenever the oven or grill goes on, and no, I don’t burn that much stuff!).  It’s such a massive fag.  The oven isn’t eye-level, so I have to get on hands and knees to spray noxious chemicals on the interior surfaces.  You leave it for ten minutes, then simply “rinse off with a wet cloth or sponge”.

At least that’s what Cif says is supposed to happen.

In real life, any contact with a moist (MOIST) cloth or sponge sends this stuff into a foamy nightmare that is impossible to eradicate.  You spend at least an hour in the confined space, breathing in gaseous sodium hydroxide (probs no such thing, but you catch my drift) as you try to wipe the stuff off before it burns out your eyes and through your Marigolds.  And how on earth are you supposed to clean behind the wire racks that support the oven shelves?  How?  HOW IS THIS DONE?   On more than one occasion, I’ve been tempted to drag the hose in from the yard to water board the bloody thing.  Bad idea: ‘electrics and that.

Once all the remnants of the oven cleaner have been removed (I often just turn the oven on and let it evaporate), there comes the task of dealing with the glass of the oven door.  Now, I am blessed cursed to have two ovens.  My dearest ex decided that the single oven that came with the house simply wasn’t good enough and so she bestowed on me a double oven.  So, along with the psychological scars that I still bear from that relationship, I now have two ovens to maintain.  Thanks a fucking bunch, a million times over.  Anyway, in one of my OCD cleaner moments, I took it upon myself to give the glass of the top oven a thorough cleaning.  This meant removing the panel that faced the oven, removing the rubber seal, and cleaning both.  Needless to say that the rubber seal has never sat in position properly since that, and subsequent cleaning operations and the bloody thing now sags away from its metal rim.  No doubt this causes all sorts of inefficiencies and is a deeper metaphor for something.  It’s definitely a lesson in leaving the fuck alone.

Do people who use Agas suffer the same problems cleaning their ovens as the rest of us? Perhaps they’re too scared to even use their ovens for fear of using the wrong one.  “Oh GOD! I tried slow cooked porridge overnight, but put it in the bread-making oven and had to eat it at 11pm.”  I quite like the idea of having an Aga; that thing of permanent heat, the Russian roulette nature of the cooking.  The only thing is that I’d have to buy the house next door to accommodate one, so it’s probably not the most cost-effective idea I’ve ever had.

Heating

What with it being October bank holiday Monday (for me at least, and two other colleagues, actually… rude of them to rain on my parade!), I’ve been at home for pretty much all the day.  It’s been lovely, what with soup-making and stuff, but it’s been cold.  Autumn is well and truly upon us and today, I put the heating on.  I used the excuse that I needed to dry washing, but well, sometimes you just have to accept that it’s that time of year and give in to it.

My neighbours were at home most of the day again.  They have a wood burner – in Stoneclough!  For some reason, they seem to chop a lot of their logs indoors.  Rude!

Anyway, happy autumn, one and all!