TheBanyanTree: Not as simple as it sounds

[John Bailey]

Thursday May 6, 2004

NOT AS SIMPLE AS IT SOUNDS

Ye gods and little fishes but I'm tired of looking at cookers. Today it was 
the turn of local suppliers and we took ourselves off to look at standard 
gas cookers, standard electric cookers, and standard dual fuel cookers. We 
looked at narrow cookers and we looked at wide cookers. Some of the latter 
do their best to look like an old-fashioned range only to fail the 
knuckle-tap test we use to determine the solidity of the construction. I 
tell ya, I reckon the manufacturers are running a private competition to 
see how thin they can make the steel and still persuade their products not 
to collapse under their own weight. And the enamelling. Oh boy. I can't 
find it in my heart to call the spray-on paint job they all seem to use an 
enamelling process at all and what I do call it isn't suitable for polite 
company.

So, all in all, I wasn't pleased with our morning's work.

I was especially not pleased to discover that because we have no mains gas 
supply and so would need to run a gas hob on bottled gas we'd be in for an 
additional installation charge of £250. That's a rip-off if ever I saw one.

Standing in the carpark outside the showroom, breathing in the fresh air 
and admiring a traditional Lincolnshire brick and tile range of stables, 
perhaps two hundred years old, probably more, glowing in the sunshine, 
substantial and reliable, I sighed, heavily.

"Know what you mean," said Graham.

"I don't know about you," I said. "But I'm no closer to a decision that I 
was when we started. Perhaps less so."

"Well at least we know we're not going for gas."

"True, but I can't work out whether that's a good thing or not. My brain 
hurts."

"Me too. Let's go find some decent bread for lunch."

Thank goodness for decent bread. That's something which has improved out of 
all recognition in recent years. Good, flavoursome bread is available just 
about everywhere. Most of what we buy is baked on the grocer's premises or 
very close by from frozen loaves distributed by a number of large 
companies, all competing on price and quality. Yes, of course, you'll get 
better from a master baker working behind his own shop front. Goes without 
saying, that does. But what you find on the grocery shelves isn't bad at 
all and the five pain rustique rolls we picked up were totally delicious 
and completely affordable.

The break from cooker considerations lasted until we sat down to lunch back 
home. Then we talked cookers. I went off for my afternoon nap, woke, and 
then we talked cookers again.

"Now my brain hurts," said Graham. "I'm going out to cut the grass."

"Good idea. I'll see what deliciousness I can conjure up for dinner."

Over the past few years cutting grass has become Graham's favourite outdoor 
activity, good for thinking and for clearing the brain. Or for not thinking 
at all, when necessary. Here, where the backdrop is not composed of estate 
fencing and ugly modern houses, it is a perfect job for either purpose. And 
the air is, by comparison, like a light champagne.

After dinner I went out to sit by the pond, watching the last light of the 
day fade away and the stars blink into visibility. Our garden frog sang his 
evening song and even though, as a poet, I have the gift of being able to 
command him to silence, I let him be. A single frog singing away in the 
cool evening air may not be a symphony, but I've heard worse sonatas.

When I came in I'd made up my mind on the cooker question. "I want an 
oil-fired AGA cooker," I said.

"Even though it costs more than a small car?"

"Even so. We have the cash and I'd really, really like an oil-fired 
range.  Though I'd be happy with a reconditioned one."

"Right. We shall have to see what we can do, then."

So, we may have reached a decision. The only thing now is timing. Do we 
slot one in this year or do we simply set the cash aside against the time, 
in a couple of years or so, when the kitchen units will be showing their 
age and need replacing as part of a complete kitchen make-over? If that's 
the case we'll have to rip out the cooker we inherited with the house, 
which is well past its dump-by date, and install a cheap but functional 
electric cooker as an interim measure. In the countryside, reaching a 
decision over the ultimate cooker is not necessarily as simple as it sounds.

--

[Note:
There are two pictures to go with this entry, to be found with the web 
version at:
      <http://www.oldgreypoet.com/2004/200405/20040506.html> .
There's an associated poem, too, which may be found at:
      <http://www.oldgreypoet.com/leavings/frog.html> ]
--

John Bailey   Lincolnshire, England

journal of a writing man:
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>