Small earthquake in Chaz'z kitchen. Not many dead. Probably.

It's either an earthquake or a brief-but-vicious war. Or I had two people round for dinner and served an uncomplicated three courses. Sheesh. You would not believe the chaos. And yes, it is to do with the smallth of the kitchen as much as my inveterately messy habits; but yes, I did indeed wash up as I went along; and still. Sheesh. Also aaargh.

*girds loins, sets to it*

[Also? Ciabatta yum. Cracked that, I think. But one more note to self: when inventing a ginger-and-pear puddingcake, it really would help if you remembered to put the ginger in. Just sayin'...]

Mysteries of a folding universe

A knife block? Is actually quite a big thing to lose.

Also, full of knives.

I wonder where on earth I can have put it...?

In other news, I need more champagne flutes. I broke another one last night (at least, I would prefer to say that Mac broke it, but he would certainly point out that if I hadn't been removing him from the dining table at the time, whatever flailing portion of him it was that caught the glass wouldn't have been flailing, and so...). It's not a calamity. I didn't have enough anyway, due to previous breakages. Unless there's a boxful hidden away in the cupboard somewhere. That's always possible. I ought to check. I do kinda flail, though, every time I get near that cupboard. My nerve goes. But everything depends: the theory says that if I could sort out the cupboard, then a lot of dining-room stuff could move into it. And then the remaining cookbooks could shift out of the living room into the dining room. And then the books on the living room floor could move up onto the vacated shelf-space. And then...

Like that. Like one of those sliding-tile games where everything can move, if you can only shift the space to where it's needed.

Which starts with that cupboard. But I'm scared.

I was going to watch the Grand Prix rerun at one o'clock, but it's not on till two. Grr. Grand Prixs are at one! It's a rule! Only not, apparently.

That gives me a spare hour. During which I could, y'know, tackle that cupboard.

But I'm scared.

Never ask a question until you know the answer

Does a man who never irons need an ironing board?

Or a man who never plays cricket need a cricket bat?

I tell you what:

If a person were taking himself at all seriously, once he had emptied the vasty cupboard beneath the stairs where everything begins, he would probably strip out the manky old carpet and then splash a coat of white paint all over everything. Then it might not smell quite so manky in the depths there, and it would never need doing again in all his years of life.

Luckily, of course, I am not taking myself seriously at all: just shifting stuff out and making piles all over the dining room, prior to chucking out the odd random object and shifting all the rest back in again.

Discovery. It's a process.

Y'know, if I hadn't embarked on a desultory clearing-out of the cupboard under the stairs, I might never have noticed that it smells a little manky in there.

If I hadn't noticed the smell, I might never have prodded about with a little more enthusiasm, shifted more stuff, and so discovered how damp the carpet was where it met the outside wall. Or how damp that wall was, generically.

Some of you no doubt think that all this notice & discovery is a good thing. As though it were better to identify a problem than to sail on in blissful ignorance.

Hmmph.

Apart from chucking out the manky carpet and not stacking anything against the damp wall, is there anything I can actually usefully do about this? In a house without a damp-course, if that's relevant? Might it perhaps dry out just in the circulation of air, or is that a pipe-dream...?

(For the benefit of the distrustful: yes. I have indeed chucked out the manky carpet. And a few other little things, mostly broken. I got stuck on the washing-machine hoses: I don't actually need them to connect my washing-machine, but. Perfectly good hoses. Can't quite bring myself to throw them out, don't know what else to do with them...)