We all know what retirement is about. Get up in a morning put on a track suit and slippers, M&S furry ones, walk down to the paper shop for the morning paper. Cup of tea, read the paper then wait in the queue down the post office for the pension. Back home to morning coffee and a shared scone….. Now there’s the rub.


The new cooker, the one with six rings on top, two ovens, a grill and a warming drawer, the one that was essential to our way of life to cope with the new cooking and baking regime which Christine was to introduce has been installed for eighteen days and have I had a scone? No! Nothing remotely like a scone.
We were supposed to be getting drop scones, fruit scones, cheese scones, all types of scones but nothing, not even a buttered scone. But to be fair, this cooker is a far cry from the twenty year old small cooker we had before which took forty minutes for the oven to reach temperature and ten minutes to boil a pan of water. This is like having a Rolls Royce to the previous mini, so there is hope yet.


The fridge is a different kettle of fish. Obviously it’s different - you don’t cook in the fridge and it's not a kettle! Sorry I’ll move on. I think I mentioned earlier the fridge has this bio-fresh drawer with humidifier in which you can keep cabbage fresh for 180 days. This concept has defeated both of us. We turn the humidifier on to keep the bio fresh drawer fresh (if you get what I mean) and this produces more damp and water in the fridge than you would usually find in your average Amazon rain forest. We have now turned off the humidifier and are using the bio-fresh compartments simply as salad crispers. This seems to work a lot better but the cabbage has now gone off. But seeing as a new bag only cost 69p from Tescos and they had shelves full of the stuff I wondered why we were trying to keep the original one at all.


Of course getting used to the cooker and the new fridge and freezer and dishwasher is further complicated by having Alex, Dave and the grandkids staying with us for the summer. So as well as getting used to the new equipment, Christine has also to get used to cooking for six instead of simply for two of us.

But things are beginning to fall into place. Last night's Toad-in-the-Hole filled two big baking pans and rose to six inches high, but its main claim to fame was that Dave couldn’t finish it off. For the first time ever Dave left the table without polishing off the lot.


Speaking of Dave, I thought it was only me but maybe it’s a man thing. Every time I walk past the fridge I always open the door and look inside, I am not sure why but it must be to see if there is anything in there that takes my fancy. It’s not that I’m hungry or even want anything and I usually just quickly close the door. So why do I do the same thing ten minutes later and then ten minutes later again, etc? I have no idea but I was pleased to see it’s not only me, Dave does the same thing.


Mind you talking about looking in the fridge, I remember a few years back a friend of ours, Judy was on a diet and had a strict list of things she could eat. But anything she could sneak out the fridge without her husband knowing didn’t count, she could eat that, probably no calories in sneaked food!. For whatever reason the diet didn’t produce the required result, not that it was needed anyway.


So there we have it, I am sure that as soon as Christine has time to understand how the eight different functions of the ‘multifunction oven’ work, we will have scones and perhaps even sausage rolls. In the meantime tonight is baked fish and Christine has done that already on this cooker and it was a big success.


Which reminds me of my first principle at work, find something you can do well and keep doing it, leave the clever stuff for others it may go wrong but if it goes right then remember to get the memo out first letting everyone know it was your idea.