Too Long, Too Short and Mary Berry

 

“Have you got any longer needles, love?”

“Longer than what?”

“Well, longer than the short ones.”

“Okay, let’s have a look. I’ve got these ones.”

“Oh no, they’re much too long.”

“How about these, then?”

“But they’re too short.”
“What size did you want?”
“Well I need some that are longer than the ones I’ve got, but I don’t want them too long, but these ones are too short.”

“Can you see any here that are longer than the ones you’ve got?”

“Ooh, I don’t really know. You see the longer ones are longer than the short ones and the ones I’ve got are too short.”

I kid you not, this was a genuine conversation I had one day with a customer. She eventually left with a packet of needles and didn’t bring them back, so they must have been suitably longer than the short ones she already had.

I hope, by now, that the locals are getting used to my somewhat warped sense of humour. I always have a little chuckle to myself when I am able to bring my favourite quip out for an airing.

“Do you sell invisible thread?”

“Yes, it’s there on the shelf. Can’t you see it?”

And then there was the day when a customer walked in the shop and asked, “Do you have googly eyes?” I couldn’t resist saying, “Well not every day. Some days I’m okay.” Don’t you feel stupid when there is no answering smile or acknowledging laugh?  I think I probably have a reputation of being ‘that slightly strange, but presumably harmless, batty woman in the wool shop.'

 

Having Stitches has been my therapy over the last 3 ½ years and as a great man once said, “Find a job you love and you'll never have to work again.” However, having to physically be in the shop has curtailed a lot of home activities that I now have a lot less time for.  For example, baking.  Pre-Stitches, I used to bake several times a week. Now, I only get to do it occasionally. Don’t get me wrong – I still feed Mr PDP when he needs it, but some of the once-regular delicacies are filed in his long term memory and only feature on state occasions nowadays.

I was watching Mary Berry on TV last week and marvelling how she describes things like catering for dinner parties of 20 as being relaxing and ‘great fun’. I beg to differ.

She demonstrates ‘easy & quick’ recipes and has all her ingredients carefully weighed out ready into suitably-sized preparation bowls by her minions behind the scenes. It takes about 3 minutes to complete the preparation of her wonderful pudding, in her brilliantly clean, no clutter kitchen, which is the size of a small lecture hall, and then she pops her creation into her sparkly, shiny oven. She can then delegate all the resultant washing up to more minions who are happy to scrape out half a meal’s worth of gunge left in the bowl, (because TV chefs never scrape the bowl out), whilst she relaxes with a cuppa.

During a recent baking spree on my day off from Stitches, I couldn’t help comparing my experience to Mary Berry’s.

1.    Find recipe book and clear space on kitchen worktop.

2.    Scrape off previous blobs of cake mixture from page, then hunt down ingredients.

3.    Locate required ingredients at back of cupboard, ignoring expired sell by dates, whilst chucking out items whose sell by dates really couldn’t be ignored due to health & safety regulations.

4.    Dig out kitchen scales and laboriously weigh out everything, failing miserably to locate suitably sized prep bowls.

5.    Wipe down all kitchen surfaces again, which are now covered in flour dust and sugar fallout.

6.    Check which tins are required to bake fabulous creation in. “It needs a what?” “I’m sure I used to have one of those.”

7.    Down on knees, ferret in back of long-forgotten cupboard, drag out what looks and feels like right shape and size.

8.    Peer dubiously at neglected surface of said tin. Blow tentatively at it. Remove spectacles, wipe vigorously on tea towel. Replace spectacles.

9.    Accept guiltily that, yes, that peculiar marking on tin could well be rust.

10. Fill washing up bowl with hot, soapy water.

11. Root around under kitchen sink to find Brillo pad and rubber gloves.

12.  Scrub diligently at offending marks until satisfied that the danger to health and imminent trip to A & E department has been eliminated.

13. Rinse and dry tin.

14. Wash bowl and draining board to remove Brillo pad splashes and fallout.

15. Refer back to recipe. “Line tin.”  **Sigh**

16. Ferret about in kitchen drawer for greaseproof paper, locate pencil, draw round tin, now then …. where are those scissors?

17. Grease beautifully, painstakingly lined tin. Realise you need two of these.

18. Repeat.

19. Now do Mary Berry impression and tip everything into bowl, then mix.

20. Forget to preheat oven. Well, I’ve been a bit busy.

21. Place prepared creation into not so sparkly and shiny, but by now, preheated oven.

22. Stand back, look at mess in kitchen and piles of washing up in sink.

23. Reflect on how relaxing and ‘great fun’ it was.

24. Make determined resolution to get back into baking more regularly.

25. Recall how nice Asda ready made rhubarb pies are.

 Do you think I stand a chance of deputising for Mary Berry at all?