Discoveries

 

Discoveries

It was not a job we intended doing and it could not be called serendipitous but it had to be done.

In our kitchen we have one of those useless corner cupboards, a space filler between two runs of cupboards. In fact, there are two. The upper cupboard is where we keep fuses and batteries for small appliances, sticking plasters and over-the-counter remedies like paracetamol and ibuprofen. It is adequate and only slightly awkward to access.

However, the base cupboard is another matter entirely. It is larger and difficult to get at. It is the place where pots and pans and ‘unique, must have’ appliances go to die. Well, the shelf shifted somehow and listed at an alarming angle. I mean, if you were on a ship and it did that, you would be seriously worried, worried enough to encourage all your ship mates to dash to the other side of the vessel. During the Battle of the Solent in 1545, the crew of the Mary Rose all rushed to one side of the ship, anxious to see Henry VIII, who was watching from Southsea Castle, and the ship capsized. Actually, that’s not true. It’s just an urban myth. No-one really knows why the ship sank, but nearly 500 men drowned. Most sailors then could not swim and died within sight of land.

*We could not remove the shelf, no matter how we tried. It remained sulkily in place, thwarting all efforts to release it. How was it fitted, then? It was put in place before the worktop was attached. Everything was removed from the cupboard and the business of identifying items began. 

Surprisingly, we discovered that most of it was still useful, though maybe not to us. I mean, cake tins and bun trays! I do not inflict my cakes on anyone. As for Yorkshire puddings, I dislike them and have never attempted to make them. A willing recipient was found for these extraneous bakeware items and a couple of other gadgets, bought in haste in an excess of enthusiasm, used a couple of times, then banished to everlasting darkness in the corner cupboard.

*We considered sawing the shelf in half, a messy business in a confined area, but the problem was solved when it slipped down to the bottom of the cupboard, saying, ‘I’m not coming out and you can’t make me.’ Everything we wanted to keep has been put tidily in the cupboard.

In the course of this exercise, appliances were tested to make sure they still worked and manuals were consulted. The manuals live in another cupboard and those applying to machines and gadgets long since defunct were binned. It’s quite a pleasure to look in the cupboards now, if you’ve got nothing better to do.

There are other cupboards . . . and drawers . . . but tomorrow is another day!

 

*When I say ‘we’ I really mean Barry.