Fresh fish from the freezer

  I was given some fish today.  While I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, unfortunately it did not come packed neatly in a carton with interleaving plastic to facilitate a quick toss in the batter and into the frying pan. No, what I received was more like a seafood sculpture.  Three large whole fish had obviously been tossed straight into the freezer where they had wound themselves into a loving embrace which no man shall put asunder. These fish, tightly frozen together to form one big fish, cannot fit into my fridge because they are 3 feet long. I dare not leave it in the sink because I have visions of the cats chewing on it in the night.  The only solution is to cut off the head and tail.
  I place the frozen mass under the tap and run a gentle stream of water along the groove where they have fused together.  Grasping a sharp knife in one hand and gripping a fish head with the other, I start sawing.  After 10 minutes of concerted effort, success - the head is in the sink.  I chop off the tail at the other end and now have one tail-less fish and one headless fish stuck to a whole fish.  Still doesn't fit in the fridge.  At last I am able to get the blade into a gap and separate the fish, take off the remaining heads and tails and put them in the fridge to thaw.  I mention that at this stage almost the entire kitchen is covered in scales and bits of sawn up fish and I have broken out in a light sweat.
  Tomorrow I will be able to descale, skin and fillet them and then, joy of joys, batter and fry them. You can only imagine what the kitchen will look like after that, with trails of batter running across the stove plates and bursts of oil popping out of the pan on contact with the moisture.  Of course, it will taste so delicious it will be worth the pain.
  So thank you for your kind and generous gift, but please spare a thought for the poor fishwife next time you toss your catch so carelessly into the freezer.  I'll pay you to clean it.

Plaster disaster

I needed a plaster the other day. An altercation with the lid of an open tin of tuna resulted in a deep slice through the cuticle of my index finger, the part closest to the bone. You wouldn't think there was room for a blood vessel there, but the blood flowed as though I had put a pick through the carotid artery.
With my finger tightly bound in a tea towel, I scratched a box of plasters out of the cupboard. I managed to open it and a wad of plasters cascaded out, resembling those old sets of postcards tourists would buy at curio shops.  I snapped one off with my teeth and set about opening it.  Have you ever tried to open anything with your thumb and third finger?  Couldn't work out how to open it, so just used my teeth again. Eventually I succeeded in extracting the plaster from the wrapper.  It had four covering flaps but no instructions.  I pulled one off the sticky side, which immediately curled into itself and became a useless blob. I pulled the other half off and stuck it on my finger, but then had no corresponding half to hold it down.  I pulled the top flaps off and couldn't identify what purpose they had served.
I wrapped my finger, still bleeding profusely, back in the tea towel, threw the useless plaster in the bin and pulled another one off the cascade to repeat the process.  Finally I got a mangled plaster on to staunch the flow. If it had been the carotid artery, I would have bled to death by now.
I cannot imagine who designed this so-called basic first aid item, as the conclusion is:  useless in an emergency.  I think the best idea is to open every plaster long before you need them and lay them flat on greaseproof paper, ready to be lifted straight onto the wound with the minimum of fuss. I am sure there are many mothers who can identify with the plaster disaster!
(NB: to those who think you could apply a plaster to a burst carotid artery:  do not try this at home.)

Cleaning out the garage

Spent the afternoon sorting out the garage. again. How is it possible to accumulate so much stuff? Fishing rods unused for 35 years after the first overwind. 3 gearboxes and a V6 engine. A bicycle that no one has ridden since 2008. Two rusted microwaves, not working. 3 sets of racing tyres. A TV set. 3 Persian carpets waiting for the cats and dogs to go to pet heaven so that I can put them down on the floor again (I don't expect to even remember the patterns by the time I see them after all these years). Mother-in-law's old imbuia dressing table set with stool and two side cupboards 3 brass portholes and a ship's bell. Enough wood to build a small cottage in the back yard - that's why we've got it of course - our retirement home. A rope that can moor a trawler. An old safe that we bought on auction and were quite sure contained a stash of jewellery or valuable old share certificates - it took two days with oxyacetylene torches to cut through the door and find nothing inside! Outboard motors, oilskins, oars and other fishing paraphernalia. Thousands of nails, screws, washers, nuts, bolts, bits of wire, rubber, electric cord, piping. A fully equipped bar and accompanying decorations, racing trophies.  Wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling shelving filled with STUFF.  Definition of stuff:  anything that fills an empty space.

All of these things don't really qualify for garage space, but have found their place amongst a collection of tools that a hardware store would envy and, oh yes, the 8 cars that live in the garage.  We found one at the back that we had forgotten about.

One day we will have a garage sale to end all garage sales. Then we can convert the garage into a 3-bedroomed house. I can't wait.

We decided to have a cup of tea and sit under the milkwood tree outside and leave it for another day.