Life goes on

 I just asked Dave how I could possibly write about domestic trivia on here when the world is in such a dire state, with another obscene war begun by the Israelis and western leaders on the brink of assisting them. Oh my God! When will these people see that all war does is create suffering and vast piles of wealth for arms manufacturers and dealers? When will they invest in peace building and negotiation? 

Dave said we need distractions and something to laugh about so I should go ahead with something light.

Do you remember when our trusty AEG cooker packed up after 27 years of faithful service ( at Christmas 🙄) and we bought a state of the art cooker with an induction hob? This was 18 months ago. Dave hated that cooker because it was black. I see stainless steel, but he sees black.

He has an irrational but very real hatred of black. He says it’s too looming. It’s a very dark presence sucking the light out of the room. Apparently there is a phobia called melanophobia: he doesn’t have that but he’s on the brink.

I suppose I should tell you that when I am away from home Dave spends a lot of time sitting in the kitchen with the radio on, while he plays his guitar. He also likes to sit in there and read (yes, we do have a sitting room) so the environment matters.

So…he shaped and polished an aluminium sheet to sit on the top of it to get rid of some of the black. It helped, but the problem remained …he hated the cooker.

On April 14 this year, the induction hob on the cooker packed up. It emitted a loud pop and went on strike. Six weeks later it had still not been mended, despite being covered by a full warranty. I won’t bore you with the prolonged and tedious bureaucratic shenanigans that went on between us, the warranty organisers, the repair centre and the manufacturer, Aga Rangemaster. It was awful. 8 weeks after it packed up, Aga agreed we could have a refund from the retailer, or a new cooker from Aga. We got a refund and now own a cooker which has some white on it. Having spent hours trawling the internet I have to tell you that 90% of freestanding cookers are black. Why is that?

Well…Dave has made a white facade that slots over the handles when the oven is not in use, which let’s face it, is usually 23 hours a day.

The aluminium sheet covers the hob when that is not in use, so now there is very little black to disturb anyone. 

The problem is that I keep forgetting about the facade and trying to open the oven door and breaking the facade, but you can’t have everything. And frankly,I am just delighted that I can stop thinking about cookers. It’s not as if I liked cooking.