Tag: Moben kitchen

A Leaving Present

There are always unexpected expenses when moving house. One we hadn’t bargained for was caused by the discovery yesterday that none of Jackie’s carefully collected saucepans – not even her precious pressure cooker – can be used on the Neff hobs. Naturally therefore, the most expensive kitchen installation requires the most expensive cooking utensils. Off we drove to John Lewis in Poole to by some with a magnetic quality.

Jackie knew what she really wanted, which was Tefal non-stick pans, but hovered and havered over the price, until I took the bull by the horns, picked up a range of pots, thrust some into her arms, and carried the rest to the checkout. Even the man who served us carried a magnet to check the equipment.
I’m no fool. Microwaved meals and eating out are all well and good, but they cannot match my lady’s culinary prowess.
On our return, I just had to photograph them amassed on the surface where they will be used in the creation of delicious delicacies. There are a couple of unplanned bonuses in the resulting image. Firstly, Jackie is seen reflected in the oven as she passed behind me. As was demonstrated by an earlier photograph, this would not have been possible before she painstakingly cleaned and polished the Moben installation. Secondly, in the top left corner, Norman’s parrot can be glimpsed on its perch suspended from a hook in the ceiling.
We had a welcome visit from Danni in the afternoon. She is much-loved niece, and it was gratifying to hear her say she felt the same way about the house.


When, in 2008, I gave up my consultancy role with Parents for Children, I was given a number of presents from different groups in the organisation. One was basket containing an array of plants in a pot. The main feature of this was a very young azalea. Neither London soil nor tap water was suitable for the plant, so I repotted it and fed it on rainwater. Miraculously it has survived, having continued to be nurtured in Michael’s Graham Road house for the last few months.

It was a joy to see that this, together with a  pieris I had also bought for Sutherland Place, had, unharmed, been first off the Globe Removals van. When we get around to it, we will find permanent resting places for each of these.
Parents for Children was a specialist adoption agency set up in the 1970s specifically for finding homes for children who by reason of disability or emotional difficulties were difficult to place. With the changing financial climate, the cost of such intensive specialist work, and the development of Social Services own fostering and adoption sections, the agency’s survival became more and more precarious and closed down not long after my involvement ceased. Whole generations have reason to be grateful for their existence.
This evening, courtesy of Tesco and the microwave, I dined on chicken jalfrezi whlist Jackie ate lamb rogon josh. These were followed by treacle puddings.

A Fun-Filled Adventure

2nd April 2014
HelleboreToday’s photographic offering from an early morning tour of the garden is one of a host of different hellebores.
Jackie and I continued to marvel at our new home, as we struggled to acquaint ourselves with its quirkiness and to find our way around it.
The colour schemes are somewhat bizarre, and a really serious deep clean is required. Some things don’t actually work, and others require more than our combined intelligence to understand. Door handlesAn example of the first is the beautiful ceramic door handles of the spare bedroom in which we spent our first night. When they came off in our hands we realised that they had not been screwed into the connecting bar. Strangest of all is the cooking arrangement which we are still unable to fathom. The equipment is part of a top quality Moben kitchen installed in 2009. OvenThe unconnected and unused oven sits perched on top of a work surface. Instructions suggest in belongs in a floor-level cupboard below in which it would not fit. So, no effective oven.
The Neff hob unit nestles in the opposite work surface. This appears to have a child lock applied. We would need an infant to help us unlock it. So, a possibly effective hob we cannot fathom.
As we wander about the place, we keep our eyes peeled for a telephone point. The only one we have found is in a bedroom upstairs. Mind you, most walls are obscured by assorted belongings for which we haven’t yet found a resting place. The task of sorting things out might be eased if we got into our heads which doors lead where. It is the ‘royal we’ I use here, because Jackie has a better idea of our surroundings than I do.
Our predecessors had their washing machine plumbed into the garage. Ours lies, inaccessible, in there behind boxes of books. We’ll run out of underclothes soon.
The sellers left a kindly informative note welcoming us and saying that they had left a few items we might find useful. Some, especially the treats in the garden, will come in handy, but we will need to hire a skip.
My tongue is not in my cheek when I say that this is going to be a fun-filled adventure we will relish.
We are not fastidious people, but when we took ourselves back to Curry/PC World in Christchurch to buy a fridge/freezer we were pleased there was a B & Q behind it, because the need for three new lavatory seats was urgent. We bought two, one of which Jackie installed.
After this, we went in search of Wi-Fi. Lymington was the nearest area adequately suppled. Just as we reached Costa, they were switching out the lights, which was a little disappointing. The Angel & Blue Pig hostelry made up for it. After I had posted my blog entry for the moving day, we dined on their excellent meals. Jackie had pork cooked in two ways followed by Grannie apple crumble. My choice was burger and chips followed by sticky toffee pudding. Peroni and Ringwoods Best were respectively imbibed.