now we're cooking

dear readers, here is a picture of our new oven. when we moved into our house the kitchen had been put in fairly recently. there was a rather technical oven which had all sorts of features that no-one would ever use, like steam cleaning. i mean, who cleans their oven?

along with a lot of other features of the house, the oven was a bit temperamental. the people who used to own the house were rather slapdash about reading the instructions before doing things, much like herself. the oven would throw a wobbly when it got to a certain temperature and blow all the electrics, plunging the house into darkness. it became the peeps' habit to warn everyone that the oven was on as it would crash all the computers. this was most frustrating if a chap had just written a musing and had not yet saved it.

herself is fortunate in that she has a dear friend who is an engineer. a series of increasingly technical e-mails were exchanged. it appeared that the element might have gone caput. or more accurately the coating on the element had gone caput. it seemed that a certain type of electrical measuring device called a multimeter was needed to ascertain the cause of the problem.

but no sooner had herself borrowed such a thing than the oven stopped blowing the electrics. however, next the grill went caput. the grill was a dual grill. there was an element that went round the middle and and an element that went round the outside. the middle element was the one that went caput. so anything that was being grilled had to be arranged precariously round the outside and would only half cook even then.

herself investigated how much the spare parts might be. and then investigated how much a new oven from ikea might be, while munching her muesli. she spoke to himself, who is the main user of the oven. himself said he just wanted an oven that worked. herself ordered a new oven online and then polished off her breakfast.

the new oven arrived yesterday. the peeps are having curry for christmas dinner so strictly speaking the oven could have waited. but, as regular readers will know, herself does not do waiting. as soon as she got home from work the lights went off and out came the torch. there was a brief interlude when the lights had to go back on so she could look up on the internet how to get the door of the old oven off but no sooner had that been done than we were back in darkness. the young snake charmer was round being looked after while her peeps were off doing something. my boy and the young snake charmer decided that the house being in darkness would make the ideal setting for a swift game of hide and seek. this did nothing to calm things down. the young snake charmer is off her head with excitement about christmas and cannot stop bouncing up and down.

as the old oven came out of the gap, a load of crunchy burnt stuff fell on the floor. young dave considers it his civic duty to hoover up crunchy burnt stuff so placed himself in front of the gap where the oven had been, munching. herself by now was inside the gap, doing up the new wiring by torchlight, showing her generously upholstered rear end to its full effect.

the young snake charmer decided it might be a good idea to hide among the ovens, polystyrene packaging, burnt stuff and dave. a loud crunch rang out.

"oops! i've trodden on something!" giggled the young snake charmer. the peeps exchanged looks in the gloom, hoping it was not a vital part of the oven.

eventually the new oven was in place, the power was restored and the oven was tested. it worked. amazingly. the bit that had been trodden on was repaired and stuck back in place below the oven. it is a fairly essential bit as it is to keep dogs out of the underneath of the oven. young dave has a habit of getting singed while trying to steal food so it is just as well it was not beyond repair.

baked potatoes were put in to cook. the young snake charmer carried on bouncing. by now my boy's friend from next door had come round, wearing a rather interesting hat that makes him look like a spaniel. my boy's friend turned to my boy.

"can we go upstairs? she's scaring me!"

"i'm going to have 3 porn pies!" said my boy.

the mind boggles...