cribbitDOTnet

Home 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Little Old Man Weekly

   2022
   2021
   2020
   2019
   2018
   2017
   2016
   2015
   2014
   2013
   2012
   2011
   2010

Little Old Man Weekly

In the year 2018

19 October 2018 Safe and secure

Safe and secure

I think that the little old man would probably have used duct tape

9 October 2018
Ghost in the machine

The Little Old Man has been busy trying to use up lots of red and green tomatoes from what has turned out to be a bumper crop this year. Earlier he made green tomato chutney and to-day he has made tomato ketchup.

Just glancing through the kitchen window as he toiled on the tomato chopping, he has been a bit spooked out as he kept catching sight of himself in the garden. Halloween may be on the way but this is a bit much.

Can Halloween be far away?

5 October 2018
Scaffolding

The Little Old Man was getting worried that if the scaffolding wasn't used soon, it might be consigned to the local free cycle. So he spent a day erecting it in the hall and landing in a space far too small for it to fit. The advantage of this was that it caused maximum disruption to home life completely justifiable on health and safety grounds, saved it for another year from redundancy AND excused him from bringing the morning tea and coffee tray upstairs for a few days.

Starting at the bottom and working our way upwards.

The Little Old Man has read that one of the major causes of death in little old men is when they fall off ladders as wobbly as they are. Anyway, he decided to take the risk for the second coat and constructed a sufficiently lethal pile of wood blocks to support the ladder on the stairs.

A cheesy, if wobbly grin.

6 July Paper towel holder.

The Little Old Man does like to have a serviette on a table when he is eating. Of course he is far too mean to actually buy any so paper towels have to do instead and what better place to keep them when we dine al fresco than threaded on a paper towel holder?

'But what will happen when it rains?' asked Rosemary 'Well errr what will happen?'

'But what will happen when it rains?' asked Rosemary

'Well errr what will happen?'

27 June Power washer.

Rosemary's favourite tool is her power washer and of course she is an expert in its use. The Little Old Man thought he would pass on some of her helpful hints for its best operation as can be gleaned from close observation of her in action with it.

26 June Wine in the sun.

The Little Old Man is enjoying the hot weather and in what better way than with a couple of bottles of wine?

Catching the evening light as it illuminates the wine bottles.

Take your pick but be quick.

22 April Re-purposing trees.

What do you do with the trunks of pine trees after you have cut off all their branches?

Paint them.

Paint them red white and blue.

30 January Hotting things up.

The cooker that came with the Little Old Man's new house looks a bit like the west wing of the International Space Station 3 links and is turning out to be almost as confusing. Decided to make a simple meal on our first evening in residence so planned on grilling a pair of pork choppers. All the burner rings on top behaved as expected which is to say that when you pushed the control knob in and pressed the ignite button, a satisfacory sparking sound was produced and the chosen burner ignited. Applying the same procedure to the grill did not produce the desired effect though, yes we got the sparky sound but no sign of flames flickering above the choppers. The Little Old Man decided that it perhaps needed to be ignited manually so got out a cigarette lighter and held its flame up to the burner only to discover that it was actually an electric element and that both the ovens and the grill were electric.

Looking a bit like the International Space Station 3 links.

Now the Little Old Man has the habit of resting the spoon he is cooking with across the top of the pan when it is not in use. The trouble with doing this with gas is that if the saucepan is smaller than the burner then the flames lick round the side of the pan and burn whatever is resting across its top. His jam thermometer probe handle got just a little warm when making this year's Seville Orange marmalade and now has a permanent droop from the same cause.

Luckily, we bought a hand painted spoon dish when we were in South Africa last summer so he now has somewhere to rest his spoons.

The Little Old Man has the habit of resting the spoon he is cooking with across the top of the pan.

The Little Old Man's favourite carving knife in Sheffield steel with a bone handle. [Now with burn hole.]

Melted jam thermometer now rescued with Duck tape to keep it away from the flames.

South African spoon dish.

9 January Tetris.

When the Little Old Man was considerably younger than he is now, he used to play Tetris on an XT computer with a Hercules graphics card. [Colour monitors were well out of his price range in those days and he wanted higher resolution than they would have given him anyway. The monitor was in fact, a colour monitor, but just one colour, a lurid amber like a sodium vapour lamp.]

Well he used to play Tetris on this set-up and got quite good at it. The coming of colour rather spoiled the game for him so he gave it up. He was reminded of those days though when clearing up after xmas and new year guests and discovered the perfect slot for the two folding mattresses, alongside the bedroom wardrobe.

The the first pic shows the LOM perfect Tetris fit and the second the [more sensible] Rosemary solution which clears the curtains but is terrible Tetris.

Tetris Terrible Tetris.

1 January Salmon mousse.

We had a whole baked salmon for xmas eve and there was quite a bit left which is never a hardship with salmon. Some went in the freezer, some went very well with some rigatoni, left-over peas, beans and samphire with a good dollup of double cream. The rest I made into a salmon mousse, follow the link for a typical little old man recipe.

Buying the salmon was not without its own trauma though as this excerpt from an email to my family about my xmas food shopping shows:

but the doozy of all was the buying of a fresh whole salmon...researches indicated that morrison's had the best deal at £5 per kilo. so went down there yesterday and rolled up to the fish stand and asked for a salmon. did i want it cut into steaks or cut in half..well neither of those options, i'll just have it whole...oh no i can't give you a whole one i have no bag big enough to put it in!!! this took a while to sink in...in fact i had to get him to repeat it as i thought my hearing aides had deceived me. So turned round and trundled off to tesco where i got one [in a bag] at £5.5/kg but no samphire. picked up samphire at sainsbury's this morning...they had whole salmon [and bags] but at £8.75 /kg.

Salmon mousse.

Now what has this got to do with the little old man I hear you ask? Well had you followed the recipe on cribbit DOT net for salmon mousse, you would have seen that it includes a 'good splash of brandy', well actually, it required two! The reason for this was very simple, the little old man has a very simple [ie inadequate] food blender and when he put the salmon in it nothing much happened...well ok nothing happened...so he thought that although it made lots of noise maybe it wasn't working so he decided to poke the salmon bits down into the cutter. Well he could have used his finger but thinking about it, perhaps the spoon handle was a better choice.

What it needed was a bit of liquid to establish the connection between the blades and the fish and what better liquid than a good slug of brandy?.

He could have used his finger but perhaps the spoon handle was a better choice.

So now we have a new variation of the classic xmas pudding problem of, 'find the hidden treat' ... 'find the hidden shard of splintered wood', well I have looked for it in vain so I think someone might just be in for a BIG surprise. [Just like when you found the shot in the game pie tw, the same para-medics will be there tomorrow, so lets hope they can cope!]