To blog or not to blog

I have a suggestion for inclusion on the next revision to the National Curriculum: Ark Building for beginners. If the current weather is the pattern for Summers to come, then we’re going to need to take drastic action pretty damn quickly to avoid getting washed completely off this green and pleasant land of ours.

Yesterday, so much water fell from the heavens in such a short period that guttering collapsed under the torrent and at one point our back garden was an inch deep in water. Today is no better, although at least accompanied by the pomp and circumstance of a decent thunderstorm. It’s been thundering and lighteninging (what IS the verb form of lightening?) for several hours and is so dark I need the main lights on to see to type!

I note without surprise that [the Met Office via]the BBC have downgraded their predictions of a “BBQ Summer”, a term they now say they invented to make the concept more accessible to the press, and are saying that they only ever claimed that there was a 65% chance of nice weather. Way to back-track Auntie/Met Office! The past has not been so well re-written since 1984 (the book, not year!)

I guess we’re officially in the middle of St Swithin’s 40 days of rain (his day being 15^th July), so by my counting, this is set until about the 23^rd August. Thought that’d cheer you up.

It would have been Emily Bronte’s birthday today and the weather seems somewhat appropriate. It’s very Wuthering Heights out there. Wouldn’t take much to imagine Heathcliff trudging along in the pouring rain, sodden cape, rugged good looks, or the ghost of Cathy banging at the window singing a Kate Bush song and very pissed off that she got axed halfway through the book!

I’ve been to Howarth, where the Bronte’s lived and on a day like today what a God-forsaken place that must be. We went on a Sunday. It was shut. But you could see why Wuthering Heights is such a jolly romp (not) and indeed why they were such a sick family. It’s all in the town planning. The church and graveyard are on the top of the hill, above the town. So, someone dies of consumption (what we’d now call TB) or pneumonia and they get buried in the church yard. The bodies decompose and all the nastiness then gets straight into the water system and is drunk by the townsfolk at lower levels. Circle complete. Always a good idea to contaminate your water supply.

That said, maybe our water supply is being contaminated as we speak by the decomposing bodies of thousands of slugs which have been washed our of my garden. Oh wishful thinking. The buggers seem to be waterproof and having a wonderful time. I pulled twenty off the sweetcorn yesterday. And I don’t mean small ones – these were a good three inches long and looked a bit like Phil Mitchell would look if he were a slug. “You calling my bird a Slug, you slaaaag?”

On a good note, we have a new oven! Yay! The old bugger is consigned to rust in the garden until such a time as we take it to the tip. It will not be missed. We will be holding a short memorial service this weekend at the recycling depot where-after there will be a cremation – appropriate in so far as the oven itself was a firm believer in cremating things. It has asked that donations be made to a local charity (me). It leaves behind a grill pan and cooling rack. May it Rust in Peace.

The sparkling new beast arrived yesterday and we fitted it last night. Its lovely. It has a separate grill. I’m in heaven. This is the closest I’ve come to a sexual stirring in over a year! It has lights and a timer and a clock and more than one shelf and a top oven and a fan that works and a defrost function and a slow cook mode and I love it! I’ve been running it on full power for a couple of hours to burn off the factory smell you always get with new cookers. God knows what they make them with – whale I imagine, judging by the pong. The house smells like an arson attempt in a kipper factory. The last oven used to consume about 52p per hour when it was on full power – and that remained constant during the cooking process. This one has about 10 minutes at 60p and then drops down to less than a penny an hour to keep itself up to temperature! It is a thing of beauty, efficiency and wonder. This afternoon I shall cook a joint of dead cow and, if I’m feeling really brave, I might even do Yorkshires. Because now, I can! And I’ll not be using Delia’s recipe for ‘Yorkshire Pancakes”, nor Nigella’s obvious tendancy to flirt with her ingredients. No, just plain, old-fashioned cooking, as advocated by Mrs Beaton and Ms Craddock. I’m just hoping my yourshires turn out like Fanny’s!

And to top things off, the sun just came out!  One of my favourite song lyrics goes as follows:

I see it and I hear it
But how can I explain
The wonder of the moment
To be alive
And feel the sun
That follows every rain

Brownie points if you can name the song and artist. Shame on you if you can’t – you’re not allowed in my gang any more!

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