oven – derrickjknight

Before The Makeover 1

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Oven Pride deep cleaner carton captions claim: ‘Cleans first time’, ‘Unbeatable results’, and ‘No scrubbing required’. Now, this is probably true if you care to clean regularly. If you give the appliance a real bashing over Christmas and New Year, and don’t pay it any attention until it starts smoking, I can assure you that it would be unfair to hold the suppliers to account charged with misrepresentation.

Today, we continued the cleansing process Jackie had begun yesterday. She had applied the soaking solution which we now scrubbed with Brillo pads. Given the corrosive nature of this preparation, the Maintenance Department forced me to wear thick rubber gloves. Declining the pinny, I rolled up my sleeves.

Here, Jackie cleans the front surface before allowing me to photograph it.

Oven corner 1

This unshielded oven provides a good example of the impracticality of the kitchen we originally purchased. In fact, because it had never before been used it was most unusual, in that it was clean, with its paperwork inside. Designed to stand under the hobs it was in fact seated above the storage cupboards, all low on the floor. There is no storage at a higher level, except for the pull-out larder on the right. There was no case for the oven, which was not even attached to the electricity supply. When trying to obtain one we learned that these Moben kitchens were no longer available. The oven, of course, greatly reduces the limited working surface, more of which is taken up by the microwave on stilts, and the fan required by the creating Culinary Queen. Readers will not be surprised to spot an empty Hoegaarden bottle waiting to be put out for recycling.

Wine rack corner

The fitted pull-out is only 50% accessible because of the wine rack to its right. The blue-grey tiling matches neither the brickwork of the former fireplace on the right of the picture nor other, different, tiling around the sink, itself far away from the cooking area.

This evening, in this kitchen, Jackie produced flavoursome cottage pie with savoury gravy, and firm carrots. Brussels sprouts, and manges touts with which I drank more of the Malbec.

Fifty Years Ago Today

This morning Jackie and I had a trip to Highcliffe, last home to so many people that it is full of shops with good quality second-hand goods from houses recently rendered unoccupied by infirmity or death.
We went in search of curtains, of which the Sue Ryder shop provided three good pairs, and the Oakhaven Hospice a fourth. A wardrobe was also a requirement, because Flo is coming to stay in a couple of days time, and we want her to have a choice of bedrooms. This we found in the hospice where, in November 2012, we had bought our serpentine table. It will be delivered on the relevant day. We brunched in the Star cafe.

Should our granddaughter choose one of the bedrooms at the front she will have a view across fields to a rape crop in the distance. The idyllic back garden was visited this afternoon, among other creatures,

by a cabbage white butterfly and a hover fly sharing the sunlight on a hellebore. And is that a caterpillar snaking up between them?

The tulips are now so full-blown that they have a kaleidoscopic quality.

For my fiftieth birthday in July 1992, my friend Giles made me a chequerboard in stained glass. It now enhances the window at the foot of our stairs.

Fifty years ago today Michael was born.

Here Vivien holds him when he was ten days old.

I have given each of my offspring a stack of albums containing photographs of their childhood. When I phoned Michael today, he told me that Alice had produced a slide show from his albums and they were watching it on their computer.

Early this evening I strolled down Downton Lane to investigate the caravan sites, and in particular the shop. Downton Holiday Park is alongside the lane. A larger and more salubrious establishment is the Shorefield Country Park on Shorefield Road. That has a very well stocked Spar, which will be our village shop.

This evening we dined on Tesco’s finest microwaveable curries; lamb rogon josh for me and chicken jalfrezi for Jackie, with Sainsbury’s vegetable samosas heated in the oven. The oven is definitely meant to be low level, because Jackie, who is herself tall, is not high enough to read the symbols on the control dial. I opened a bottle of Isla Negra reserva cabernet sauvignon 2013 and drank some of it.

Progress Report

Last night Jackie managed to set the central heating system to come on at 6.30 a.m. Now we are warm. Seated in the living room which abuts the hall/office she heard a dull tapping she described as ‘bonk, bonk’. As she walked out to investigate the radiator under the bay window the noise stopped. After she had repeated this three times she stood in the doorway waiting for an encore of the sound. Five minutes went by. Then a blackbird perched on the windowsill and tapped out a ‘bonk, bonk’.
Martin Taylor came on time this morning and plumbed in the washing machine; temporarily fitted the oven on the work surface; advised us on redesigning the kitchen; and suggested we try to obtain the cooker housing to match the rest of the Moben installation.
Our predecessors had retained all useful paperwork including that from Moben kitchens, I rang them to ask if the oven container could be matched. The number was out of commission. A Google search revealed that the company had gone into liquidation. Not being a very good surfer I soon became tired of researching other sources. We can think about that another time.

At least the cooker is now operative. Not only is the oven working, as you can tell by the timer light in the photograph, but it reflects some of the other tasks we completed today. We moved some furniture from the lumber room, where we hope to sit in comfort one day, to other parts of the house. A Chinese cabinet I bought when in Sutherland place is seen in its new home in the kitchen.

Actually we are now able to see that we will have a sitting room one day, particularly as some of the floor is now empty. The foreground of the picture that shows this, bears evidence that I have today paid, by telephone, the final electricity bill for Castle Malwood Lodge.
I rather treasure the red waste bin that peeps into shot from the right. Readers may recognise the partly obscured Adult Literacy logo. I have often mentioned Beauchamp Lodge Settlement, of which I was chairperson for many years. One of the tenants in the ’70s and ’80s was an Adult Literacy Scheme. When they moved on they left their bin behind and I snaffled it as a memento. That organisation existed to bring together volunteer teachers and those who wished to learn to read. I don’t think it is still functioning.

The office is looking a bit cluttered at the moment, but I have hoovered the floor and Jackie put a rug down.

A statement of intent to turn the garage into a library has been made.

Is there anything in life more satisfying than flat packing a SafeStore box after use and stacking it away?

When we first viewed our new home, we lunched at The Royal Oak pub, and were rather less than impressed. In January the establishment had closed down and was up for rent. Only a couple of days ago did it re-open under new management. This evening we thought we would try it again.The last three days’ steady rain had just made way for a sunset that lent an optimistic glow to the building. John was a very attentive host. The food was good and reasonably priced. I ate fish and chips whilst Jackie consumed chicken in bacon and drank Stella. My choice of wine was Invenio merlot d’Oc 2013.

A Fun-Filled Adventure

2nd April 2014
Today’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. An 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. The 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.