Good evening and a very warm welcome. Tonight my story is entitled:

A Failed Love Affair

When I got married some centuries ago, well it certainly seems that way, life as I knew it changed into a whole new ball game. My husband was serving in the Royal Air Force and with a new posting and a new wife in tow, we headed for a place in England called Rutland.

We were both looking forward to this new phase in our lives. My husband had just returned from North Africa and was itching to put some normality back into his life; like a roof over his head instead of a tent and doing something, anything, that did not smell of camel. I just looked forward to being ‘on the road’ so to speak; a chance to see new places and new faces.

They have a system in the Armed Services whereby you are allocated a married quarter depending on the amount of points you have accumulated. A complicated system devised by the RAF which does not bear explaining.

Needless to say, being newly weds we had next to no points and therefore, had to seek out rented accommodation for ourselves. This search led us to an old gentleman’s house where it was understood he was renting out a room. He seemed happy to accept us and proceeded to strike up a deal. It was agreed that I would cook for him and do routine housework and in exchange he would charge us minimal rent.

Arthur, as he was so called, was a widower and ex-farm labourer. Since leaving farming he had got himself a job on the RAF Station and seemed well contented with his life, however, I think he missed the ‘homely’ feel and that is why he took us in as lodgers.

He had very little in the way of nice possessions. Most of the furniture was pretty well worn and tired looking, with the exception of one object which stood in the corner of the lounge. Upon my life, he had made me swear that I would never ever touch it; not even with the flick of a duster. The object in question was a grandfather clock which had been in his family for over 80 years. It was so tall that the floorboards had been cut away to allow its base to be lowered into the cavity. Just as well I suppose -better than having a hole in the ceiling.

I took a cup of tea up to him one winter’s morning and knocked on his bedroom door. There was no reply, so I knocked again……..still no reply. I really feared for the worst. “Could he have died in the night”, I thought? Entering the room, my mouth dropped open in total disbelief. Glancing at the bed all I could see as a mound of snow at least 2 inches deep. The windows were wide open to the elements and obviously, the snow blizzard the previous night had completely engulfed not only his bed but Arthur too. Oh! Yes, he was there alright, buried under that snow blanket, sound asleep. Apparently, as I was later to find out, Arthur always slept with his windows fully opened, regardless to what the weather was doing outside.

I didn’t really know how to cook in those days but had to learn quickly with 2 men in the house to feed. I could make soup though. Feeding a family of 7, soup was not only nutritious but economical to my mother’s purse strings so I had a good idea as to what sort of things I could throw into a pot.

Trouble was that in Arthur’s kitchen there was a lack of good sized pots except for one that had a weird contraption on its lid. Well, not knowing what to do with this so-called contraption, I put it to one side and set about playing the role of Master Chef. In went the mutton, carefully diced vegetables of all sorts and finally the barley; I was well pleased with my first culinary masterpiece. I popped on its lid and set the pot on the stove to simmer.

It was probably about 2 hours later when I returned to the kitchen and horror of horrors befell my eyes. The soup of all soups was no more. Through the tiny hole in the lid everything in the pot had been jettisoned skywards and was now congealed or dripping from the ceiling. The pot of all pots sat on the stove like some kind of alien object encrusted with volcanic lava. Even a chisel would not remove one from the other.

Well please, how was I to know it was a pressure cooker since I had never seen one in my life before. Fortunately for us, Arthur turned out to be a forgiving man. I had visions of him returning home from work, seeing the disaster in the kitchen and throwing us out of the house. He merely shrugged his shoulders, mused a little and then said, “Well, I suppose the kitchen did need redecorating anyway”. I think my husband was more annoyed with me than anything as he ended up doing the redecorating plus paying for the paint out of his own pocket.

Today, I have a small plaque in my kitchen which reads, “I am not a housewife, I am a domestic goddess”. You will note there is no mention of the goddess being a great cook, for I never did master the inner secrets on how to become one. Everyone bears the scars of lost causes in their life and one of mine is a failed love affair with my stove.

Thank you for listening to my story. Goodnight.

 
© Rebecca Rowan September 2007