All Quiet on Kojak's Front, a Spectacle, Mysterious Milk and Willy-Nilly Boxes

After my sojourn in western parts I spent a relatively peaceful week, going nowhere and seeing, if not no-one then certainly very few. This may seem boring but I was glad of the unremarkable interlude. The train journeys, as with all long journeys, had resulted in my neck etc. playing up so I was glad that there was nothing which demanded my urgent attention or presence. 
Before I departed for the big city of Bristol I had gone for my biannual eye test. Being a gentleman of a certain age one finds that the small print seems to be getting smaller every year or so. The optician gave his opthalmic opinion that my right eye has deteriorated very slightly but my left eye had actually improved a little. He admitted that this was a very rare occurence. Now I don't wish to cast opthalmic aspersions on Specsavers but it's more likely that they had previously given me the wrong lens. Since I still don't feel up to a longish drive my new specs are languishing in their Preston branch.
On Wednesday my neighbour drew my attention to a litre of milk which had mysteriously appeared on my doorstep. Regular readers of my travails will know that I obtain my milk from a friendly local farmer so it has been a long time since my doorstep was graced with milk. As it was late in the day before the bottle was spotted it was well on it's way to become yoghurt. No-one has called to tout for my milk custom so the mystery remains.

Bin day 7am

Monday dawned and with it the fortnightly attack of the evil recycling binherren. Now it was quite foggy when I extricated my unwilling carcase from the sprung edge 4 drawer etc. in the middle of the night to do battle with them. Would they sneak in under cover of the inclement weather? I could be certain of 3 seperate forays by them so I had to be extra alert. There was an attempt at confusion when the first sortie arrived out of the usual order of battle. I was expecting the green bin brigade when out of the mists emerged a white sack man! The next assault was by the belated green binherren. The morning dragged on with still no sign of the green box troops. I made and ate a nervous breakfast expecting that a sneak attack would be made while I was buttering toast. It was well past midday and I was contemplating a verbal telephone assault on the Oberbinfuhrer when a large grey bin trundled out of the fog. The man propelling it began to empty the various green boxes in Chez Kojak's cul-de-sac. Now you would think that as the boxes no longer had to be taken to the lorry they would  not now be scattered willy-nilly. Not so! Unwilling to take the few steps needed to return the bins from whence they came he practised the art of under arm bowling. Most residents in my little court have the misfortune to be under retirement age and are usually at work so they have no control over such antics but not I, dear reader, not I!  I lurked until he had emptied my green box and then sprang out of hiding. This sounds rather more athletic than it actually was since I merely opened the front door with a flourish and fixed him with a baleful look. It had the desired effect though as he meekly replaced the bin precisely where it had been. Victory was mine... for the next 2 weeks anyway.

Illiterate Travellers, Architecture and Beer and A Drugged Touch of Shakespeare

Last Thursday I had to once again arise from the sprung edge 4 drawer divan at an early hour. For once this was not an unwilling awakening as I was to set off  on a visit to another big city, this time to the lush western climate of Bristol. A friend had kindly invited me down for a few days. We were to visit other friends in the area and inspect the architecture of Isembard Kingdom Brunel's passenger shed at Bristol Templemeads station. Train tickets were purchased and seats reserved well in advance so I anticipated no problems as I boarded the train for the first leg of my journey. Fate's fickle train finger once again jabbed me when I was faced with a young woman occupying my seat. She had obviously been squatting there for some time as spread out on my reserved portion of the table was a whole panoply of cosmetic products which she was applying to her face. She seemed surprised and actually offended when I politely informed her that she was sitting in my seat. With bad grace and sighs of exasperation she began to pack up her "slap". It was at this point that I began to feel first guilty and then annoyed and resentful at feeling guilty. There were plenty of empty seats nearby so why did I not take one?  There is an old adage that possession is nine tenths of the law so that was perhaps why I felt in the wrong. My journey involved 2 changes of train and the second  stage did not leave me much time to catch my train. It was with a sigh of relief that I located the correct platform with some minutes to spare. Fates fickle finger had not finished with me though. As the train pulled in several hundred persons suddenly appeared out of the woodwork and crowded onto the platform. Now I am not, dear reader, a follower of equine sports so it had escaped my notice that I had picked the day of a major event in the horse racing calendar. Not only that but my train to Bristol also stopped at Cheltenham which was the location of the big race. Try to imagine a station platform packed with happy racegoers, all of them unencumbered with luggage and all determined  to board my train. I managed to scramble aboard my coach but at the wrong end for my seat. It was standing room only all down the carriage and it was with great difficulty that I made any progress. Several passengers remarked that there was no point in proceeding as there were not any seats left. By now I was getting rather fed up so I replied that there was indeed a seat for me and made a mental note that I damned well was going to get it. Arriving at the seat I saw to my annoyance that the reserved ticket had been removed by the person occupying MY SEAT! Brazenly he had left the reserved ticket on the table in front of him. He even showed no sign of guilt when I asked him to remove his carcase from my seat. What is it with the British public when they blatently occupy a train seat with a reserved sign on it? Are the greater portion of the travelling population illiterate? The race-going squatter even had the cheek to plant his backside on the seat next to me which also had a reserved ticket on it! During the journey to Cheltenham I contented myself with sideways disapproving glances.  At Cheltenham the train emptied and a few minutes later a tired and harrassed looking lady settled in the seat next to me. Like me she had boarded at Birmingham but was overwhelmed by the racing fraternity and only just managed to clamber on the train several coaches away. Since every carriage was packed with standing punters there was no chance of her making any progress.

Nailsea Hospitality

I arrived at Bristol, met my friend Dom and was promptly whisked off on another train to Nailsea where we were met by friend Richard and transported to his local hostelry, It was an interesting pub with an unusual pub sign of a gas heater, proclaiming the equally unusual name of "The Blue Flame" From thence we went to Richard's home where his sainted spouse Barbara made us welcome. Later, other friends who holiday on the same Greek island as myself joined us for a splendid dinner. The evening ended with friend Tricia kindly driving us back to Dom's house.

Admiring Brunel's architecture!

On Friday Dom and I set off to admire the architecture of Brunel's passenger shed at Bristol station. On arrival it transpired that the Bristol Beer Festival was in progress. In order to gain entrance we needed tickets. Fortunately Dom had thoughtfully purchased these in advance. Since the tickets included prepaid beer tokens it seemed churlish not to partake of some ales. We were joined by some of Dom's work colleagues and in order not to look antisocial I was compelled to purchase and consume more ale. Architectural admiration is full of such pitfalls...

The Shakespeare Tavern - "Is this a dagger I see before me?

 

No

 it's a pint of IPA"

Saturday dawned and with it a journey back to the city centre to meet up with my friend, the Blessed Liz who is currently working in Bristol.  Liz is still registered with my local doctor so I had agreed to collect a prescription for her. The drug delivery took place at the Shakespeare Tavern, blatently in full view of the busy street. After a convivial lunch it was time to catch my train to return home. I was relieved by the fact that it would not be full of racing punters this time but dismayed to find that someone had again taken my reserved seat! This was too much! What really annoyed me was the feeling that I was the person in the wrong! There seemed to be a visible police presence on every train home so I was grateful that I did not now possess a suitcase full of drugs. Had there been a sniffer dog my journey may have been rather stressful. Again, I had failed to realise that a Saturday afternoon journey in the football season could be rather crowded. The very last train to my home station was packed with voluble football supporters so it was with relief that I reached Chez Kojak, ready for a pot of tea and the lure of the sprung edge 4 drawer divan.  

A Sabbath Gasman, an Old Boiler and A Bin Victory.

In my last missive, dear reader, I left you with Kojak awaiting the Gas Man. After several phone calls assuring me that  the service engineer was running late but would arrive I finally got a call at 3.45pm admitting that he would not make it. To say that I was annoyed is the understatement of the year.  Let's just say that the lady who phoned got her ears severely chewed. Kojak's kitchen is miniscule and the area around the boiler had been cleared from 8am onwards ready for the imminent non-arrival. As every other worksurface was taken up with homeless items it meant that preparing any sort of meal was impossible. I had not eaten since 07.30am so it was an angry and hungry Kojak who set out for the shops. I first made a call to my friendly farmer and, arriving at milking time, did the usual self-service before heading for the supermarket.
Sunday dawned and with it the doubtful assurance that the gas man would call and that Chez Kojak would be early on his list of visitations. Once again this meant an early and unwilling departure from the sprung edge 4 drawer divan. At 10am he actually arrived. He was quite taken with the ingenious contraption I had rigged up to prevent water dripping onto the kitchen worksurface, a simple device of sellotape, half a plastic bag tailored to make a chute and a measuring jug. The young man - I say young but that's a relative term of course because, being a gentleman of a certain age all policemen, doctors, gas men etc. seem to be recent school leavers. However, I digress. The young man quickly fixed the leak and was about to leave when I reminded him that the annual service had also been booked - does no-one read ze instruktions now? However, he was quite polite and I noted with approval that when he went out to check the gas meter he was careful to wipe his feet throughly on re-entry. Anyway the rest of the service proceeded without incident and the old boiler got an "A" rated seal of approval. The central heating boiler also passed....
This morning was recycling bin day so for the third day running I had to lever my carcase out of the sprung edge etc. A gentleman of a certain age really shouldn't have to do this for days on end! After two sly victories by the evil binherren I was determined to end their successes. I adopted the "visible ambush" technique and on this occasion victory was mine on all three collection fronts. By lunchtime the weekend was beginning to take it's toll so I comforted myself with a large slice of lemon drizzle cake and a nap in the armchair.

A State of War, a Suitcase Spectacle and a Tardy Gas Man

Monday dawned as grey as the designated bin. As usual I had to extricate my carcase out of the sprung edge 4 drawer divan at some ungodly hour thanks to the Oberbinfuhrer's thoughtless diktat. Mindful of the earlier act of  hostility by the recycling binherren I resolved to be particularly vigilant. I am a gentleman of a certain age and unfortunately prone to the odd requirement to visit the bathroom and during one of these visits the evil binherren struck! Oblivious to the large house number liberally displayed on every side and also visible to overhead aircraft they callously dumped my bin in front of a neighbour's house. I say callously but the placement was deliberate - both bins neatly placed side by side blocking the path to my neighbour's door. Being of a charitable disposition to neighbours I retrieved my bin and also moved hers to one side. No such charity extends to binherren however and after this latest provocation I am forced to declare that a state of war exists between Chez Kojak and the Oberbinfuhrer.
On Thursday I had to go to the big city to purchase a small wheelie suitcase for my forthcoming trip to admire the architecture of Brunel's passenger shed at Bristol Templemeads station. Hopefully the Beer Festival which happens to be in session there will not interfere with my study. Now I do possess several suitcases, in fact I could probably open a shop but they are all of a large size.  While I was in the metropolis known as Preston I called to make an appointment for an eye test. I was delighted to be offered a test later that afternoon. A careful check of omnibus times led me to collect the suitcase and then proceed to the opticians. Unfortunately the suitcase itself was encased in a large, light but unwieldly cardboard box which was so stoutly packed it was impossible to remove. Adding to my woes was the frequent bathroom requirement that gentlemen of a certain age are prone to.  Hence the spectacle of  Kojak struggling with a large cardboard box on his way to get spectacles via the restrooms of M&S, the shopping mall and Debenhams. At Debenhams I felt compelled to buy a guilty cup of tea which of course did nothing to ease the situation.
Today the gas man cometh. He should have cometh this morning as promised but apparently British Gas runneth late and knoweth not when they arriveth. There is a very real chance of the state of war being extended. I am mindful of the dangers of waging war on two fronts but if lacking British Gas, Chez Kojak has plenty of British Grit.  

The Bloody Bathroom, More Chicken and Pancakes

I bade farewell to nephew and great-niece on Saturday morning as they continued their journey to Chester University. This was another exploratory visit for potential university places and later reports from them indicated that they did offer the type of journalism course she was looking for. My tagine experiment seems to have worked well as nephew muttered that a family sized one was going to be on the shopping list. As both he and his wife have a varying working day so something which could sit quietly in the oven for hours would be useful. The hearty appetites of my relatives had also stretched to demolishing the pudding. My great friend Margs always arrives with something in the way of a gift and on her last visit she had presented me with a panettone. A few attempts had made a significant impact but there was still quite a bit left. I solved the problem by making a panettone bread & butter pudding with a reasonable slug of sherry in the custard. That cooked quite nicely and slowly underneath the tagine.    
I did have a slight casualty when I caught my arm on the very top of the tagine lid leaving a fairsized red weal on my arm. I thought nothing about it until I had a shower later in the day. I didn't take any initial notice of the expected stinging sensation until I saw red spots all over the bath and shower screen. It seemed my earnest scrubbing had removed the already damaged skin. I have often been called a bleeder in my life and have never had any problems providing the required pint of rare blood to the Blood Tranfusion Service. I was, however still dripping water and liberally transfusing red corpuscles all over the bath and, to my horror, all over the new clean cream towel. The Horns of the Dalai Lama once again. Did I dry first and then apply first aid? Naturally all the necessary equipment was not in the bathroom. I knew this because I had removed the sticking plasters to the kitchen, figuring out that they were much more likely to be needed there. I won't paint too much of a picture of a damp, naked Kojak moving around the house but fortunately net curtains prevent severe trauma to the neighbours.
Having staunched the flow I then had to attend to the other victim - the cream towel. On nephews departure I had already changed bedding and towels and set the washing machine chugging so I smeared some stain remover on the bloody towel and put it to soak. I then had to attend to the bloody bathroom which looked like a limited version of a chain saw massacre. Having completed the First Aid and cleanup I then had to replenish supplies. I had taken some bacon out of the new fridge-freezer in case bacon butties were needed for breakfast but my visitors had been content with tea and toast so somehow the bacon needed to be used up.  Mr Tesco provided some chicken thighs which, wrapped in bacon and cooked in a cheese sauce made a tasty meal for a day or two. 


Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday so the last of the chicken was forsaken for pancakes. I may have mentioned before that I believe there must have been an army cook somewhere in the Kojak family tree as we can't seem to cook in small quantities. And so it was with the pancake batter. I lost count of the number but I did end up with a rather large plate of pancakes, sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice. I need not look at another pancake for some time...

Tagine Cuisine

At Christmas, Santa, in the guise of one of my nephews & his family bought me a Moroccan tagine. Actually it wasn't from Morocco but from the Hairy Bikers but you know what I mean. I spent some time looking at recipes but found that if you Googled "Tagine Recipes"  what you actually got in many cases were recipes for tagine dishes but cooked in a normal oven casserole dish. Now I wanted none of this pseudo nonsense. If I was going to launch Kojak's Kitchen down the tagine trail it had to be the pukka stuff or not at all! Having blithely trumpeted this I have of course had to modify my aspirations since the average British house does not not cater for cooking over a charcoal fire except:-
(a) If you have a barbecue in the garden and
(b) If you are prepared to do it under an umbrella.


The lean mean cooking tagine

 Since I do not have (a) and have frequently done (b) I have to settle for using the oven. Kojak's kitchen is rather bijou and cupboard space is very limited so the bright blue tagine sits on top of a wall cupboard. As is the way with things on top of cupboards the intention to immediately use it faded slightly.

A few weeks ago I received a telephone call from the same nephew. He was taking his eldest daughter down to an Open Day at Chester University and could they come down and stay the night before? This would save them a very early start from their home near Newcastle. Now as chance would have it I was looking into the kitchen as we spoke and naturally the tagine leapt into guilty view. To forestall the inevitable question "Have you used it" I had to quickly renew my researches into tasty tagine dishes. Because nephew and great niece were uncertain about the precise time of arrival the use of the tagine was quite appropriate since  it's basically a Moroccan slow cooker and once prepared, the dish can look after itself in the oven quite nicely for an hour or three.  You may be surprised, dear reader that I am old enough to have a great niece. In fact I have a clutch of great nieces and nephews. I put my youthful appearance down to clean living, moderation in all things and a sparing use of alcohol... here endeth the fairy tale....
One of the cardinal rules about tagine cooking (I only know this because I read about it) is that you don't lift the lid because the conical shape is designed to ensure that evaporated liquid rises and then drops down on the contents to keep them moist at all times. Because I was a tagine virgin I had warned nephew that the meal would either be a superb surprise or else we'd be having the dish of the day from the local chippy. In the event, the dish, chicken with potatoes, carrots, onions and herbs & spices, turned out well although I must add that if you feel compelled to add some pre-soaked brown lentils make sure you arrange them all at the bottom so they absorb the juices. Even great niece, who is a bit picky about food, had seconds. Nephew had third & forths so  I think it was a success. In hindsight I should have taken a photograph but we were too busy eating....

Meat and No Veg, Supermarket Sweep, Itchy Monday and a Close shave

Following the initial success with the new breadmaker I decided to introduce my tried, tested and enjoyed, low fat, low salt wholemeal loaf to the new machine. I had to do some mathematics as the new model makes a larger loaf and the baking  programme is slightly different. The result was very palatable but I felt some further tweaking would improve matters. I approached this with some caution  as I remember all too clearly scraping overflowing dough mix off the innards of the previous model after some over-adventurous quantity adjustment. A softly softly approach was implemented and whilst it did not quite catchee monkee it was nevertheless a clear step towards ensnaring the simian. On Sunday I decided to use some more of the excellent Garden Centre beef to make a steak pie. Thinking that I would avoid a last minute rush for the evening meal I prepared the meat, put it into the oven and went to prepare the veg. A tad prematurely as I discovered to my horror that there was no veg. I was sure I had purchased some on the previous Friday. I even remember writing down what I fancied. I blame the incident, not on a senior moment, but on the unfortunate hop, step & stumble caused by the doorway kerfuffle. Now I am seldom given to panic but the time was 3.45pm and Sunday closing was at 4pm.  Moving much more quickly than is recommended for a gentleman of a certain age I did the local equivalent of the commercial channel show "Supermarket Sweep" and made the check-out, breathless with seconds to spare. I did require a calming cup of tea on my return home. Steak pie was on the menu. Not as good as mother used to make but appealing enough.

Flushed with success and deserving of a treat I brought the Kenwood into play. I don't usually blow my own cream horn but I do pride myself on turning out a decent cake. Until problems with my wrists made it uncomfortable I would have done everything by hand but the Kenwood is much better than the previous rather haphazard results with the old food processor where a nanosecond too long could result in a chocolate pancake. Mindful that fruit is good for you and that Vitamin C is essential for healthy bones and teeth I thoughtfully added the juice and zest of an orange to make a tasty yet healthy cake - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! 

Monday morning dawned. It felt like the middle of the night and in fact it was almost. It was bin day and worse than that, recycling bin day. Once again I had to arise from the sprung edge divan with 4 drawers to do battle with the evil henchmen of the Oberbinfuhrer. Recycling day means a 3 fold attack by the binherren. Now I'm sure that there is a reason behind the change from 2 seperate collections to 3 but  I cannot see how this can be cheaper and more efficient. What it means to us poor targeted citizens and to Chez Kojak in particular is a state of red alert from 07.30 onwards. The green bin and paper/cardboard sack collections pased without incident but the green box, the sneaky green box binherren who have always been my nemesis were later than usual. My anxiety was heightened more than was normal as I had a physio appointment and the time for departure was nigh. My countenance heavy with impending defeat I had no choice but to leave Kojak Villa unguarded. During the physio session Lynn, the physio noticed a sizeable rash on my hand. This was not due to my nervous bin-related state but a reoccurrence of the allergic reaction caused by the wrist brace she had kindly provided some weeks back. I thought I had avoided this by carefully wrapping a bandage around my hand but this had clearly not been a lasting solution, moreover it had begun to itch and the skin was flaking quite badly. I've never had an allergy before unless you count motorway middle lane hoggers, persons stopping without warning in supermarket doorways, people who leave shopping trolleys all over the supermarket car park, bin men, bin men and also bin men. However, the wrist brace has had to be binned and I also can't wear latex at weekends behind closed curtains... not that I ever did of course... Lynn also kindly looked up the results of the blood test I'd had a few weeks before. To my relief and delight my cholesterol count had halved and was now a very healthy 3. I have to admit that this is probably largely due to the statins prescribed by my Health Centre to all old gits but nonetheless  I felt entitled to a celebratory slice of chocolate cake on my return home.  Rounding the corner into my little court I saw that the green box binherren had indeed seized their chance and called while Chez Kojak was unguarded. To my amazement the box had been neatly returned to where I had left it. Have I tamed them at last? Time will tell.
Today was quite a busy day, in retirement terms. To loosely plagiarise Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a gentleman of a certain age can be at home all day and no-one will telephone or call at the house but the moment he is in the shower, or has both hands buried deep in a washing up bowl either or both aforesaid interruptions will occur. And so it was today. Preparing to venture out to retrieve a parcel from the sorting office, the postman having also called while I was at physio the day before, I was performing my ablutions when the window cleaner arrived hours earlier than usual. Fortunately I always keep the bathroom blinds drawn to preserve my modesty and prevent trauma to passing window cleaners. Now my neighbour was also out and we have an agreement that we pay for each others windows when one of us is missing. After a hurried scramble I managed to catch him, slightly damp (me, not him) before he exited the area. Retrieving my parcel from the sorting office I called in at Butlins, the local Open Prison for some fruit & veg and then went on to my friendly farmer for milk. Returning from there I spotted an empty Barber's Shop and also an empty parking space so I made an impromptu call for my Spring haircut, or trim & polish as it is commonly known. Due to my follicley challenged appearance I get a very favourable rate which is even cheaper than the pensioners discount. Having said that, it is only a few minutes work with the clippers and I emerged, smart but definitely Yul Brynnerish and conscious of a distinct draught around the collar. Fortunately that was the only close shave of the day.


The nasty rash on my hand  has required frequent applications of the ubiquitous E45 cream. I may have overdone it last night as I slipped out of bed 3 times...