I use rubber gloves in the kitchen. The reason is two-fold: I don’t like my fingers going all wrinkly from water and chemicals and I like having the water temperature in the sink as hot as possible. So, rubber gloves.
Of rubber gloves, I have found that Marigolds last longest and protect my hands in equal measure. Except when they develop holes. Water inside the glove is not a pleasant feeling.
For this reason, I generally have a spare pair in the under sink cupboard. I call them my emergency pair. And tonight I needed them.
I’d spent most of the day cooking various things which meant quite a few washing up sessions. It was during one session that I realised my lefthand fingers were sloshing about. I reached under the sink to open up the emergency packet.
Like most people, I have a left and a right hand. While essentially the same, they are different enough to require different gloves. The emergency packet of Marigolds contained two right hands.
After a moment of indecision regarding what was actually wrong with the gloves, the problem resolved itself. It was either a mischievous trick or a machine malfunction. Maybe the entire batch was all right hands. If that’s the case then, perhaps, there’s also a whole bunch of left hands as well.
The weather was no less unkind. This weekend we were being subjected to Storm Jorge. This nomenclature confused quite a few people on Twitter. A lot of racists complained about it.
Obviously our next storm should have been Ellen however, there’s a rule that a storm named by another country retains that name. This weekend’s storm was named Jorge (pronounced ‘hor hay’) by Spain. And so Jorge it was. Our next one will be Ellen if we manage to name it first.
I was very concerned, lying on the lounge, watching Jorge lash the glass and terrace with torrents of rain. The wind was bending the trees and the birds were clinging on to the thickest branches. I didn’t want to go shopping. I didn’t want to leave the comfort and safety of a couple of cockerpoos.
By the time I did leave, Jorge was having a bit of a break and I managed to get to town unscathed. Mind you, the park was covered in the storm brought oceans of water.
The thing about aquifers and heavy rainfall is when the volume of water is greater than the seep factor which naturally soaks it away. This creates big, muddy puddles and streams of water following gravity down roads and into gardens. It all vanishes quick enough but for a while, it’s a quagmire.
But, as I said, I managed my trip in and out of town without getting wet.
And Storm Jorge wasn’t that bad in Farnham. There were times of blue sky and sunshine and times of dark evil rain and, once at least, hail.
I sat and watched the hail. It was very small. Growing up in Sydney, I’m used to the type of hail that crushes cars and increases insurance premiums. Still, it was hail and had Freya intrigued. Not that she went outside. She just watched from the safety of my lap.
The weather remained sunny for long enough to allow Mirinda to take the girls to Hankley while I prepared a Persian style hotpot for dinner.
And, after a lot of thought and Covid-19 reflection, I’ve decided against going to Ghent to see the van Eyck exhibition. There’ll be other breaks, other paintings.
