Total Whiteout

This post has been in my head trying to get out for some time but I wouldn’t let it. Every now and then it would shout, ‘tell them, tell them, go on, you know you want to’ ……

Like a wasp it buzzed around pissing me off and occasionally stinging me just in case I might have forgotten it.

Forget you??  I’d like to fucking forget you but every time I walk into my kitchen, there you are IN MY FACE!

Possibly it would never have been told had it not been for Gemma over at My Big Nutshell but, having read her latest post I realised I wasn’t alone.  This THING that tormented me had other victims too, victims braver than me, victims willing to share and maybe, just maybe sharing was the answer. Take away the control and I could be back in power, I could be the one calling the shots.

What am I talking about? 

I’m talking about MY SHITTY KITCHEN!

You might remember me telling you a little about having my shitty kitchen fitted  (yep, ex lax, the transvestite plumber and the broken nose).

The thing is, like so many things in my house, my kitchen was never completely finished.

So, the walls got a coat of emulsion which was only supposed to ever be as an undercoat, (did you know emulsion ABSORBS grease?). The kickboards are still in my bedroom so that anything that drops on the floor invariable rolls under the kitchen units. The floor, well, we ripped up 7 layers of lino to reveal the ‘lovely’ red and white tiles with every INTENTION of laying a new floor. The edge of the windowsill was never tiled so there’s just a strip of bare concrete and not a single sodding door or drawer handle is straight.

My kitchen is what is know as a galley kitchen, it’s long (and I use that word loosely!) and narrow so, to counteract that we decided to put in narrower base units to give us more floor space with a range of cupboards above. (The added bonus there being that the floor tiles were only laid up to the edge of the old units so I have several inches of concrete floor either side! ) The only trouble is, using the workspace means you are practically underneath the fucking cupboards.  If I’m not cracking my head on them then I’m cracking it on the extractor above the hob .  

The kitchen designer (again, I use the term loosely) did allow enough space for the fridge but didn’t take into account that it would be quite nice to open the door to it’s full extent. Trying to get the shelves out to clean them is as painful as watching my elderly neighbour trying to reverse park her car.

But, not only that, my kitchen is the place where white goods come to die …….

First of all it was my tumble dryer, one day it just stopped working and I couldn’t figure out why.  I called out the nice ‘man who can’ to take a look.  After 5 minutes he turned to me ashen faced holding the slightly singed plug with bent pins.  This things a death trap he said in horror, you could have all been burnt in your beds!  I’ll take it away for you.  Noooo I said, I can’t afford to replace it and I’ll just be left with a big gap in my shitty kitchen. So it sits there, all shiny and white and smug laughing at me as I festoon the house with wet clothes and frantically try to iron dry airtex PE shirts in the mornings.

Then the dishwasher started making a strange chirruping noise even when it wasn’t switched on.  I asked my FB friends for advice.  It sounds like there’s a bird trapped in their I said but I’ve looked, I can’t see one. ‘Have you shut the dog in there’ one helpful soul asked.  ‘I don’t know Alf’, I replied, ‘I was too busy looking for sodding  birds!’

Anyway, the chirruping stopped and for a while all was good until, SOMETHING (and I still don’t know what it was), flew out of it one day when I opened it nearly taking my eye out.  Whatever it was must have been crucial to the working of it cause it doesn’t work anymore!

The story of my Washing machine you can read about here .It does work for now with the aid of two extension leads strung across the kitchen like bunting.

My steamer's on a go slow and things that used to take 40 minutes now take twice that time.  Ditto my toaster (although that does at least toast rather than steam). My oven is given to randomly overheating (which is why kids I ALWAYS burn pizza) and I’m on my third kettle so far this year.

So, like Gemma, I’d just like to say:

Stop reading if you have a shitter kitchen than me. I don't want to hear it. Stop reading if you have a better kitchen than me, I hate you. I hate you more if you have an awesome kitchen and have NFI how to cook either.

Because, like Gemma, I CAN cook too (when my shitty kitchen lets me!)

Cake

Tiffin

Lemonade Scones