Friday 11 September 2009

New, Shiny, Calm



The fridge-freezer died on Tuesday. It's Friday morning and the new one is in place and humming away nicely. I am focussed, efficient, and unemployed. The timing could not have been much worse, as we had both a dressed crab AND a particularly soft Camembert in there, which created a fairly unique aroma as they gently sweated away. Both the crab and the old fridge are now gone. The fridge to join the ever-growing EU fridge-mountain, and the crab, well to be honest it was pretty far gone anyway, so it got triple-wrapped and binned. Hopefully some grateful Larid will sniff it out in the next few days. We've kept the Camembert; it is much improved.

Actually I'm told that 85% of an old fridge is recycled. Shredded. That must be some shredder. Of course what they should actually do is build better fridges. It's another example of the world regressing as the culture of consumerism takes over. Years ago you would buy one fridge, and it would last your entire life, or perhaps longer than that. Manufacturers then realised that if they built really good stuff, then a) it cost more to build, and b) people only ever bought one and never came back. No, much better to build a nice plasticy fridge from the cheapest components known to man, pay some poor sod in the far-east 25p to assemble it, and with any luck it will conk out after the five minute manufacturers guarantee expires. At the same time, ensure that you price your engineer's visit (parts extra) at the exact point where by far the majority of people will go "Oh fuck it, let's just get a new one", and hey presto you have an order book with almost infinite longevity. Winner.

Anyway, it arrived yesterday afternoon, and in marked contrast to the other one, keeps food cold and frozen. The manufacturers guarantee ran out this morning at about 10am, but so far it is exceeding expectations. Look, here it is, neat, tidy, clean, and chilled.


If you're looking at this, and you're my mother, the vegetables are all at the bottom, and we're storing the beer for the neighbours.....

Thankfully, the run of rarities has temporarily ceased, so once again I have been able to get out on the patch. Three Meadow Pipits and a Jay has been my best effort. I think having two small children is largely prohibitive to finding migrants, though we did get a Spotted Flycatcher at the end of last week. Mostly I have been sorting stuff out at home. Usually at this point I trot out a long list of domestic tasks I have performed during the past few days in the vain hope that Mrs L will see fit to dish out a few BPs, but I'll skip that today. Suffice it to say I have done LOADS of things and I'll be out birding at the weekend, merci. In addition I have earmarked this afternoon for tidying. And admiring the fridge.

5 comments:

  1. 1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a flame war.

    Bananas don't go in the fridge!

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  2. I have to disagree Fst0pped - the bananas seem to fit perfectly. My concern is not the bananas however, it is the lack of chocolate. Do you not know what a fridge is for? Actually, I must applaud you for opening your fridge to public scrutiny and appealing to our baser instincts. Superb - guaranteed to provoke comment. And envy, or disgust, or laughter. As I say - superb!

    A fatbirder tip - to get your count up you could post the 'open fridge' photo nice and small, forcing people to click on it and give you that extra hit. Not that I ever indulge in such deviance...

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  3. My last remaining Double-decker from my five-pack was out of shot in the door. I ate it today whilst dipping a White-rumped Sandpiper. The fridge is now chocolate free, which needs immediate remedy given it is the autumn.

    WR SAND present 7am to 11am
    JL present 11:20am to 3:30pm
    WR SAND present again 6pm

    We are not amused.

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  4. Sod the banana-in-fridge issue, I was going to mention the fact that the bottom shelf above the drawers should surely be reserved only for raw meat... You know, just in case it drips?

    Anyway, thanks for the seawatching from Sheringham info - I think we're starting there tomorrow morning, and I'll talk to Howard when I see him later - 4 hours or so. Shit. I was tempted by Abberton, but Mr Stopped and I ended up at Rainham instead. Great move.

    Mr Haig - Your small pictures idea is ingenious and I shall endevour to use it liberally.

    ReplyDelete
  5. A fine idea, except that the fatbirder code is not present on the page that opens when the picture is clicked (since all that opens is the .jpg file) and so I suspect that it doesn't count. Linking to previous posts on the blog however would have the desired effect.

    ReplyDelete