Clangers has some unexpected points of excellence – I know, it is a massive surprise. Intimacy is discussing where are we at with the Tax Return for previous to the current Tax year whilst Clanger employs the drastic electronic wizzing of the nasal hair trimmer. Nobody blinked. This was not explained to me in the marriage ceremony. It just sort of cropped up – ho ho. But one of you needs to alert the other for various departures from what is socially acceptable in terms of nasal hair length – no?

Clangers – inspite of being genetically challenged in the area of nostril flaring is a surprising cooker of eggs and other sources of protein – such as fish, steak and other strange items that come home. He does an amazing something magical with bacon – but shoos me out of the kitchen to preserve secrecy. He is amazing on eggs. I can cook – I can, but scrambled eggs are a bit of a bugger to get right all the time. I am also a bit hit and miss when it comes to pastry – ‘she makes pastry’ – yes, on occasion – due to the gluten obstacle, pies are out unless I make them – but it is necessary to be completely in the moment or you start doubting yourself and the wheels fall off – annoying – and generally not recoverable.

A-CHIVE

Derek the Swan

So here we have a couple of exhibits of Clangers’s creativity. On the left is Clangers’Kitchen Garden. You will see two items ‘growing’. The Parsley sort of shows off it is doing so well. The Chives, on the other hand – adopt a more biblical approach to survival – bit meek. There’s a story about this. Clangers was experimenting with growing seedlings, last summer – good work. All began on an equal footing; parsley had half and chives the other. Then Clangers had an ‘fertilizing’ idea. I mean ideas themselves are a kind of fertilizer.

Clangers thought tea leaves might be the thing those baby seedlings just emerging from the seed matrix need to help them on their way. Clangers’s has patented the Tsunami Approach to Tea Leaf fertilization of kitchen gardens. There’s nothing like an enthusiastic dump of fertilizer for the emerging seedling. This incident is now referred to as the – Great Tea Party – well it was a bit Darwinian after that.

The parsley seedlings fared better as they missed the bulk of the force, where as the chives … on the other hand were not so lucky. I believe three made it. We then had to experiment with positive affirmations and constantly encouraging the chives. We even made a ‘war cry’/encouragement chant.

It went a bit like this …

GIVE ME AN “A!”, “A”,
GIVE ME A “C!”, “C”,
GIVE ME AN “H!”, “H”,
GIVE ME AN “I!”, “I”,
GIVE ME A “V!”, “V”,
GIVE ME AN “E!”, “E”

There was also movements to go with it. WHAT DOES THAT SPELL … “A-C-H-I-V-E!” WHAT ARE WE DOING? “ACHIEVING!” WHAT ARE WELL ALL ABOUT “A-CHIVE!”.

The creative life continued. I came down to breakfast to be met with an Origami – well I thought it was a Goose, but no it is a Swan, called “Derek”. Clangers also made a couple of friends. Derek is a fussy sort of being.

But the absolute piece-de resistance – par excellence – sadly I have no photo, I will need to convey the amazement in words – prepare for amazement … was the One and only black pudding sandwich. Clangers likes weird food combinations – there does not appear to be much unity or cohesion of vision but pursue it – he does. There is a kind of genius in tenacity. Imagine if you dare – fried slices of black pudding, swiss cheese, chilli, sun dried tomatoes and avocado.