The day before Halloween the organic vegetable box arrived.  ‘What’s in the box?’ I wondered, hoping there’d be a pumpkin (and no curly kale).

I pounced on the leaflet. At this time of year there’s usually an abundance of seasonal squashes and the box company make an effort to be festive. Yep. Pumpkin was listed.

So I unpacked and put away the produce, item by item: leeks, carrots, potatoes, expecting to come upon the pumpkin. Nothing. Oh well. It happens sometimes, you have to go with the flow, but - damn - now I’d have to go out and buy one from the supermarket.

Tradition! It must be upheld! There would be a Halloween pumpkin lantern and pumpkin soup in this house.

But wait - right at the bottom of the box, under the purple sprouting brocoli - my hand touched a small spherical shape. I pulled it out. Ahhh! A little warty gourd - orange, yes - but surely not a pumpkin?

Pumpkin it was. No bigger than an apple. The littlest pumpkin I’ve ever seen.

‘Come and see!’ I said.

‘What’s that?’ said Jnr, ‘Do we have to eat it?’

‘Technically, it looks like a pumpkin,’ said J.

‘I think it is. But it’s too small,’ I said.

‘What a shame,’ they said together.

‘You’ll never be able to carve a face in that,’ said Jnr.

‘Or make soup,’ said J.

J and Jnr exchanged a glance.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Nothing,’ they said, and left the room.

‘ I will,’ I said, ‘Just you wait and see.’

So I found my smallest, meanest-looking kitchen knife and set about sharpening the point on a carborundum stone. Swish, swish. Swish, swish.  Yes. We’ll see about that, I thought.

I lifted the littlest pumpkin out of the box. What a sorry little thing it was, clinging to its clods of earth, all stunted and warty. It made me sad, seeing it so teenyweeny and balanced on the palm of my hand but I washed it and scrubbed it and rubbed it all dry. It was so cute and shiny, I hardly liked to cut it.

I eyed it up. Squinted. A face became manifest. My blade glinted. Ha! Off with the top of its head!

There was no stopping me now. Stab, scoop, scrape, sculpt. All its little innards scooted in the bowl.  Not even enough for a spicy thai papaya/pumpkin salad.  Sob.

Outside an owl hooted. It sounded like a scream…

(Yes, that is an egg cup.)

And that’s what became of the littlest pumpkin.

The End.

But what about the pumpkin soup?

Never fear, dear reader. What are freezers and microwaves for?

‘J! Jnr! Supper’s ready!’

And here’s some I prepared earlier…

[Demonic laughter.]

O,

1. Finger!

I was three; Granny had left a sharp knife on the kitchen table. Knives were shiny and forbidden, irresistible. Quick as a flash - I reached for it - and a second later I had virtually sliced off the entire top of my left index finger. Bad Granny! It healed up okay, but the cut was deep and the nerves were damaged. The tip is still numb. I burn it all the time.

2. Ear

About to start school and I had a fever. Four hours later they came to take me away. My spine was rigid and I was hallucinating. I can still remember it; the ambulance men looked like witches and warlocks dressed in black cloaks with big pointy hats. I screamed and didn’t want to go. Childhood meningitis. I could have died, apparently, or been left brain damaged. O, I was lucky. Just a few more hours…

I came out of it with a burst, scarred ear-drum and partial deafness. (Locating a bleeping electronic device when it’s going flat is nigh on impossible for me, but being able to lip-read has its advantages. Especially in pubs and clubs.)

3. Knee - ow!

I have a triangular shaped divot just below my left kneecap. Running home from school one day, I tripped and landed, smack, on a large pointed stone. I remember the blood soaking into the turnup of my white ankle sock as I carried on down the lane.

4. Finger, again.

Christmas 1979; my first attempt to cook the festive meal. I thought corrugated carrots would make a change. The mandolin grater seemed just the thing, it was super sharp and made fancy ridges on anything you passed through it. I’d just got into the rhythmn of slicing the carrots when - oops - blood - I’d gouged three deep troughs out of the side of my right index finger. (I quite like these scars; they make my hand look like it’s been scratched by a wild animal.)

5. Abdomen: Part 1

I have a constellation of three small scars around my navel; the result of a laparoscopy. I had a bout of mysterious abdominal pain and this is what the Doc decided to do, to investigate. After a nuclear dose of anti-biotics and a spell in hospital, the results were inconclusive.

6. Thanks a bunch, Shelley.

At first, I thought the bump on my nose was a spot, so I squeezed it. Mistake. Chicken pox. Somehow I had missed out on the childhood version; the virus waited until I was a stressed-out teacher and arrived in the guise of a student called Shelley who came to college when she was ill. I had three weeks of agony and itching, fighting down my natural impulse to pick scabs. I succeeded; the only scar to remind me of Shelley is the one on the side of my nose.

7. The Bumpy Tibia

Indonesia 1993. Walking along an unlit, uneven pavement late at night, not looking where I was going (there was so much to distract a person), I managed to fall down a storm drain. I smashed my left tibia on something. Luckily, although I ended up with a festering multi-coloured tropical wound, my leg was not broken. However, the bone behaved as if the blow was a fracture and made scar tissue; I now have a weird bump on my left shin.

8. Abdomen: Part 2

Just before Christmas in 2001 I had a second attack of abdominal pain. I couldn’t walk. I was rushed to hospital with a suspected appendicitis. The investigation left a four inch lateral scar above my hip bone. It was discovered that my appendix had already flared up and deflated (no, not quite the same as ‘burst’, I was told) some years earlier. What a puzzle. I could have died, apparently. The second bout of pain was, most likely, the disgruntled organ singing its swan song. This time, just to be sure, the Doc removed it.

Tra-la!

……………………………………

Jnr: What’s for lunch?

MsAnn: Soup.

Jnr: Not soup.

MsAnn: Soup.

Jnr: What sort of soup?

MsAnn: Monster.
[Standard family response to a daft question or one which one does not want to answer]

Jnr: No, really, what sort of soup?

MsAnn: You taste it and see if you can tell me.

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Over the last six weeks one of the perennial ingredients packing out our organic veg box has been one of the less popular, time-consuming-to-prepare, tough-skinned, recalcitrant members of the gourd family. They are quite decorative and are a colourful addition to any veggie still-life, but when you get three of them backed up on the counter, they take up considerable cubic capacity and something has to be done.

…………………………..

Jnr: Eurgh. Pumpkin. It’s pumpkin soup.

MsAnn: Pumpkin and red pepper. It’s not ready yet. I haven’t blended it or added the yoghurt. It’ll be lovely. You’ll see.

[Jnr makes no comment but leaves nonchalantly by the back door, and ambles towards the garage where his Dad is working on Jnr's bicycle.]

…………………………..

pumpkin,
originally uploaded by biteykins.

On Halloween we often do the traditional thing and make pumpkin lanterns, except that there is a price to pay. Because these seasonal gourds are a foodstuff, and I hate wasting food, I won’t just scoop out and throw away the pumpkin meat inside the ‘lantern’. I cook it, and my family have to eat it.

……………………………

J: We’re just off to Halfords to get some bits for the bicycle.

MsAnn: Lunch is nearly ready.

J: We won’t be long. He needs an new inner tube.

……………………………

Over the years we have had pumpkin curry (quite successful), roast pumpkin (not so popular), pumpkin pie (inconsistent result, but can be very good when I get it right), pumpkin jam (sweet stuff is not my strongpoint), and pumpkin soup, my favourite to make; it requires a great deal of therapeutic chopping with the heftiest kitchen knife, plenty of stirring and simmering in my favourite large blue saucepan, or The Vat, as J calls it, and the application of a power tool, namely my industrial strength blender.

…………………………….

[The sound of the car pulling up. J and Jnr enter.]

MsAnn: Soup’s ready.

J: Oh. You made soup. We had lunch. We had a pasty on the way back from Halfords.

MsAnn: What? But I told you lunch was nearly ready, just before you left.

Jnr: We didn’t get you one because we know you don’t eat them. [Gives a bit of pasty crust to the dog]

J: Yeah. We came over hungry. We were just passing the Crib Box. Shame about the soup.

MsAnn: But you knew I was making soup.

Jnr: The pasties were Dad’s idea.

J: Traitor.

MsAnn: Well, thanks very much, the pair of you.

……………………………….

They haven’t got away with it entirely, though. As long as you do it before you add the yoghurt, pumpkin soup freezes very well indeed. MsAnn has a large number of ‘tub-it’ containers which are perfect for a situation like this.

They are now stacked in the top drawer of the freezer, each one full of spicy, bright orange pumpkin soup.

Their day will come.

……………………………….

Musical accompaniment. The pumpkin chord.

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cakeknife,
originally uploaded by biteykins.

I didn’t used to believe in the secret life of objects, or, more accurately, I was oblivious to it; it didn’t occur to me to imagine a chain of ownership when it came to the few things in my possession. Maybe it’s a feature of growing older that not only do you get ‘more stuff’, you grow a perspective on objects, you learn to love ‘patina’ and provenance. And with age, you get more context to place things against; like it or not. The secret life of objects becomes interesting.

A couple of notes about objects:

1. Someone on the radio today was cracking on humorously about John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, and how it was ironic that he sang ‘Imagine no possessions/I wonder if you can’ on a white Steinway piano in the middle of his 72 acre estate.

2. Imagine the secret life of a teapot. A Teapot is there, a fly on the wall (or, a prop on the occasional table) at all the big occasions. And the small ones. Weddings, funerals, visits, departures, hangovers. Teapots used to be handed down. I have my grandmother’s teapot - a pink lustre glaze Sadler with gilt edges - it is like an iridescent sea shell. If you held it to your ear, imagine what you might hear?

It was my birthday today. I had a lovely day. As is traditional, I was given some things which mostly I didn’t need, but which were thoughtful and welcome. I acquired more context. We had tea. A cake with candles was brought in (so many candles) and they had squeezed them all on, bar five, because it was a small cake (none of us are mad about cake) and not all the correct number of candles would fit. This was explained to me because I live with two males who are keen on numbers and accuracy.

I went to the drawer to take the cake knife out.

‘You’ll recognise it, because it has ‘Cake Knife‘ written on it,’ my Aunt had said, when she sent me off to fetch it, the first time I saw this knife. I was nine then. It’s my knife now.

This is what happens the more birthdays you have…

With that thought, and now we are past the watershed, I’m off to have a stiff Marguerita.

………………………………

knife,
originally uploaded by biteykins.

These are the sad remains of a kitchen knife. Last time I put the oven on there was a bad plasticky smell in the kitchen. Now I know what it was. My kitchen devil. Somehow it must have slipped into the bottom of the baking tray unnoticed, lay under the gently bubbling cheese of a pizza and slowly melted. The handle has spread like a liquorice biscuit and is wafer thin at the edges.

I used that knife for at least twenty years; it was serrated, brilliant for ripe tomatoes and slippery things like cucumbers. I’m going to miss it. It’s one of the few things which has survived my minimalist materialism, along with the Levis jacket from Lewisham market. It moved with me from Bristol to Somerset, Somerset to Devon, Devon to here. It was there when I was a co-habitee, but unlike other more decorative reminders of that era, like the blue teapot, the knife didn’t get chucked out when I purged the past. It was too nondescript, too useful. It was there when I lived on my own. I must have cut up hundreds of onions with that knife. All those tears.

I still had it when I met J. Oddly, one of the first things he gave me was a knife, another kitchen devil. We were in the supermarket on a joint shopping trip and, as we cleared the checkout, he presented me with an unserrated vegetable knife. At first I thought he’d pinched it. Then I was worried. I didn’t know him very well, after all, and there he was handing me a knife. It was weird. I said something like ‘Quick, put it away’, and he was hurt that I had 1) spurned his gift 2) thought he would shoplift. Then he wondered about what sort of company I kept.

We cleared it up, though. The thing was, he had a large kitchen devil the same, and he thought the small one would go with it, make a set. It was a hint that we might amalgamate our utensils at some point in the future. He made me give him a coin to dispel the old superstition, “if you are given a present of a knife, give a coin in return to avoid ‘cutting’ the friendship.”

http://www.whimsy.org.uk/superstitions.html

And we did amalgamate. I still have that gift-knife. It still cuts well, too. Actually, when I think about that, tomatoes or not, I don’t think I’ll even miss the melted one.

………………………………………..

I just met my friend for a long walk and lunch. She told me one of those terrible ‘you can’t help but laugh’ tales. Here it is:

An older relative of a friend of hers died on Sunday evening. I will call her Doris. Doris used to visit her sister on Sunday afternoons, stay for a chat and a meal and then return home in the evening. Last year she had stopped going as health problems, blood pressure combined with too much weight, meant she was no longer able to drive. Her sister, who I will call Vera, suggested a mobility vehicle instead. It seemed like a good idea so Doris got a grant from the council and bought one with gears and a weatherproof hood.

Doris started visiting Vera again, but every time they met, Doris complained about the vehicle - it wouldn’t start, it was unstable, it was too slow, too small, she got wedged into it, the hood leaked in bad weather - she developed a conflict habituated relationship with it, cursing it out and threatening to get rid of it every time she drove it.

On the fateful Sunday, she had visited Vera, they had eaten together and Doris had indulged in her favourite topic - complaining about the mobility vehicle. This time it was the hood; it flapped in the wind and leaked. Vera said she should return the vehicle under warranty, but Doris, who had a reputation for being stubborn, announced an intention to ‘fix it’ one way or another.

The following day, Vera had a visit from the police. Her sister had been found dead in suspicious circumstances; police had cordoned the house off and crime scene investigators were sent in. After she’d had a cup of tea and absorbed the terrible news, Vera couldn’t help wanting to know more about the details of what had happened the night her sister died.

‘What do you mean - suspicious circumstances?’ Vera said.

‘A knife was found at the scene,’ said the officer, ‘If there’s a knife at the scene of a death we have to list it as suspicious.’

‘A knife? What sort of knife?’

‘A palette knife.’

‘A palette knife? You mean one of those ones with a rounded end? But you couldn’t kill yourself or someone else with one of those,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘They found a tin of glue,’ the officer said.

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Vera,’My sister was found dead next to a palette knife and a tin of glue. And that means it’s a suspicious death?’

‘That’s right, Ma’am. Because of the knife.’

‘But where was she?’

‘She was found inside a mobility vehicle, parked outside the house. With a knife and a tin of glue.’

They sat for a minute in silence, whilst Vera tried to picture it.

‘That explains it,’ she said, and burst out laughing.

‘I’m sorry, it’s the shock,’ she said. ‘But you have to laugh. She’d see the funny side of it. Doris, I mean. If she was here. She was probably trying to fix that bloody plastic hood and got all *airiated. She had a weak heart, bless her.’

‘We should wait until the forensic report,’ the officer said.

‘Unless it afixiated* her first,’ said Vera. ‘With that glue.’

‘I think we should wait for the report,’ he said.

‘But did someone see to Orton?’ Vera said.

‘Sorry, Ma’am. Orton? I’m not with you?’

‘Orton. He’s in the house on his own.’

‘There was no-one at the property when Officers arrived.’

‘He’ll be my responsibility now.’

‘Could we have a surname, please, Mrs Sawle, only we need to interview this Orton in case he can shed any light on the matter.’

‘Someone’ll have to go in and get him.’

‘A surname, Mrs Sawle?’

After a few minutes of confusion, apparently, the officer phoned through. The C.S.I team were all still at the ’scene’ up there in Clay Country, kitted out just like on telly, in their disposable white suits and everything, getting ready to investigate the ’suspicious circumstances’ when they got a message to send a man in under the cordon. There was a flurry of interest among the onlookers. The man soon came back out again. He’d found the ’suspect’. He had him contained. It was none other than Orton, a small, blue, caged bird; Vera’s pet budgerigar.

…………………………….
*Note: 1. airiated- one of Vera’s words meaning angry, irritated, beside oneself. 2. afixiated - Vera is fond of ungrammatical, incorrect or made up, ‘prefixes’.

This morning I went to the Butchers. I stopped buying supermarket meat about four years ago and now frequent a local butcher who raises his own pigs. He gets rabbit, pheasant and venison sometimes and everything is seasonal, local and fresh; their sausages win prizes. The inside of the shop is pristine, decorated in crisp blue and white. They’re all really friendly and there’s usually a bit of banter as the guy serving tries to sell you more than you want. It’s a game. Oh, go on then. Or, no thanks, I don’t think I will today. It’s so old fashioned, but it’s their thing. It works. I, for one, go back for more. Time was, if someone said ‘What can I do for you Madam,’ I would look over my shoulder as if to say, ‘Who me?’ These days I’m used to it. I even quite like it.

My plan was to settle up the outstanding and place our Christmas order. They bag it all up ready for collection on Christmas Eve or whenever and you just nip in, have a mince pie, pay, and off to the pub for a snifter.

Today, serving in the shop was ‘the lad’. Up until now he has mostly been out the back boning the meat and making the prize winning sausages, leaving early on Saturdays to go to his rugby matches, but for the last six months the older man has been training him up in the subtle ways of the small ‘upsale’, and he is now deemed ready to face customers.

If you had to draw a picture of a butcher, this lad would be it. He must only be twenty or so but he’s big, stout, with a large round head and short dark hair. His thick, black eyebrows meet faintly on the bridge of his nose. There is something of the well-fed lycanthrope about him. He has huge hams for hands and thick, meaty forearms. He’s local, not chatty, but laughs easily, unselfconsciously displaying a missing tooth. This lack of attention to modern dental fashion combines with a set of extraordinary mutton chop sideburns to create the feeling that you have stepped into a time warp and gone back to the 19th century. He even has rosy cheeks.

I wanted some stewing steak. I watched him slap the meat on the board and dice it expertly, scooping it into a bag and wiping his bloody hands on his striped apron. For eight years I was a vegetarian, but I don’t mind a bit. If you are going to eat meat, this is how it should be. Real and bloody.

Without being sycophantic, he was really pleasant and helpful. He seemed completely happy in his job. I couldn’t help wondering how, in 2006, a young lad like this came to be. I was so impressed I let him sell me a couple of extra rashers of bacon and decided to add some sausagemeat with cranberry and a jar of Onion Marmalade onto the Christmas order.

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