pumpkinstrokemarrow

The outdoor pumpkins have now sprung into life - emerging in a much more modest way than the indoor one. Perhaps what they say about the rate of growth in the tropics is true - and we now have three Big Max pumpkin seedlings. And we now have 17 of the three dozen sweet peas up Watchword patience.

When we lived in Harringey we used to eat boiling chicken quite often - a very cheap rather yellowish something that the Cypriot butchers sold rather a lot of. The yellow was more to do with age than being corn fed but they were very cheap and made a very good stew - a bit more to it than the same thing made of a roasting chicken. So we have now tried out the Cheam butcher on this one - getting a very large chicken, very slightly yellow for about £10. Cut up into six peices and duly boiled up with the usual trimmings - not taking very long at all, maybe an hour and a half - and turned out very well. Two of us did half of it in the first sitting. Odd thing is that while one is eating a higher proportion of the fat - which gets into the gravy rather than be discarded from the bottom of the roasting tin - the whole thing seems much lighter on the stomach and more digestible than its roast cousin. Interest in which issue clearly reflects one age. Second half frozen and to follow tomorrow.

Tales of good intentions gone wrong from our neighbouring electrical contractor. It seems that the government decided to do something about the standard of domestic electrical work and imposed all kinds of standards, certificates and documentation. Which all sounds very well. But there is a catch. Soppose one has a rather large central light fitting in one's sitting room ceiling and it falls off. One decides that one would rather get someone in to put it up again rather than wobble around on the steps oneself and that the light switch might as well be replaced while we are at it. Maybe a couple of hours work all told. Budget £50 for the work and start approaching electricians. According to my informant, the safety and documentation requirements for a job such as this mean than even if he charged £100 it would still not really be worth his while - presumably compared with what he can get on other classes of work. Net result is that I think he is charging far too much for such a piffling job and decide to do it myself. I wobble on my steps, make a bit of a hash of the job. Said hash subsequently causing the house to burn down, the result that the regulation was designed to avoid. Maybe we have struck quite the right balance here. Clearly need an enquiry by a panel of experts.