Smoke gets in your eyes

Brrr! It’s chilly in here this evening. This is because I decided to cook chips for supper tonight for the Boy and me, along with cheese-and-ham chicken kiev-things, and beans. I usually do plain boiled tatties with things like that, being a healthier option and all, but I decided to ring the changes. So I put the oven on to preheat for the chicken, and peeled and chipped a couple of decent sized spuds. Shortly before Boy finished work I put the chicken in, so that I could start the chips as soon as he got back, and everything would be ready at the same time.

All fine and dandy so far. When he arrived home I put the chip-pan on to heat the oil, and we stood in the kitchen and chatted for a while. Then he went upstairs to change, and I took the kitchen bin out to empty it into the dustbin. While outside I remembered that I hadn’t brought the guinea-pig in for the night, so went and got her. That involved quite a long chat about how much quicker it would be if she stopped messing around and jumped into her house so that I could pick her up more easily, instead of running about like that. Anyway, she eventually decided to play the game and I caught her and carried her indoors to her hutch.

Funny smell, I thought. Bit smoky.

Oops! The chip-pan was nice and hot alright. So hot that the kitchen was full of rank oily smoke. Trying not to get too agitated, I very carefully moved it off the ring to let it cool down. After a few minutes, and with a wrung-out teatowel at the ready, I cautiously edged the lid away from the pan, fearing spontaneous combustion at the introduction of oxygen. Luckily it had cooled enough to avoid that, but the removal of the lid allowed even more rancid smoke to fill the kitchen causing all and sundry to have paroxysms of coughing. Flinging open all the windows and the backdoor to get a through draught meant all the lovely warm air had to go too.

Which is why it’s so cold in here tonight.