inspiring photo essay iii, pt. 7: new kitchen

Quickly, because a blind horse is after me and that is apparently a sign I am in denial of my anima.

We are on the final stretch. Here is the fridge. It is a terrible fridge since it has no pictures of me and girls on it. In the plus column, it opens in a new way to the old fridge. Having to remember this fact and all the new places for mugs is like having a free brain trainer (I mean a brain trainer that cost thousands of pounds).



A new hob also, with oven of the kind that I used recently and burned my thumb. Downsides: I might burn my thumb again. Upsides: it is unlikely that this oven and grill will melt the plastic cupboard above it with terrifying gouts of flames that make dinner guests squeal when you put them in charge of sausages (I always put dinner guests in charge of sausages for this reason).



'My God, Robert, you are a heartless swine!' you remember to say. 'All of that build up over weeks of this agonising photo essay re the boiler-controller, then the empty wall, and then NOTHING.' Sorry about that. But it was a false alarm. The controller was off the wall (not 'wacky' but 'taken off the wall') but that was not the end:



'Hooray! How valiant! I love the old boiler-controller! I bet it survives forever!' You lose.



We do not know how to use this controller. All we could do with old one was turn it on or off. That is all we can do with this one. There is a guidebook. If you are Kathy and Ian, I am joking, we have read the guidebook and have programmed the controller to within an inch of its soulless life. If you are not Kathy and Ian, we haven't.

'Oh well. But surely the Garibaldi lampshade evaded the cut. I mean, apart from anything else, who would touch it?' I don't know the answer to the second half of this, but the Garibaldi lampshade has gone the way of all flesh and lampshades.



'Oh. Oh wow! How modern. And the ceiling is so white! It must have taken hours to clean off the thick film of grease.' Well, maybe that is what happened. But maybe they just painted over it. If so, I expect a few-microns-thick sheet of brilliant white to separate from the grease at some point and float down into a half-made pan of kedgeree.

'The south face of kitchen, previously devoted to hampers. What of that?' This of that:



'Amazing. If this is the case, then you must have TOTALLY FILLED the already full understair cupboards which were previously so full that you kept the mop and hoover outside it along with a couple of hampers full of mugs and t-shirts. Also christmas decorations.' No. Miraculously the understair cupboards are ALSO much emptier. (I know that Henrys are cynically done to look cute, but this one really does.)



So it's all change at the old corral? Not quite. Here, to the inch, is where we used to keep drink.



Notes relating to this picture:
- The Stones Ginger Wine is some that I have been carrying around as a sort of mascot since 1992. The only time I remember anyone drinking any was in the spring of 1997. It was my friend Mike. He's fine.
- You will have noticed a ridiculous over-focus on one particular drink: yes, it is true, we have two bottles of Angostura Bitters. One bottle of bitters lasts a pub twenty years. There is no reason for us to have two. We don't understand it either.
- Do not think from the presence of a bottle of Sailor Jerry rum that we recommend Sailor Jerry rum. We anti-recommend it. It tastes like deodorant. We use it only on already very drunk guests.

You are thinking what a magical treat it must be to eat at the table, on chairs, in a cool and un-oil-be-sauna-d kitchen, thank to the fancy new extractor fan, previously photographed on the wall. So, suspense fans, WHAT DOES THIS PICTURE OF IT ON THE FLOOR MEAN?!



Answer on a postcard please. I mean, I will tell you tomorrow.