The Pantry

An electrifying piece with which I tormented the readers of the current issue of the Harrowing Times

The wiry electrician had been wandering around our house for days. He had already established that electricity had been installed around the 1600s when the house was built but that some of it was a little out of date now. He concluded that the live was too lively, the earth was not earthy enough and the neutral was far from it; that unless substantial changes were made the system could fail or, worse, set fire to the house (which is nicely combustable as it has a thatched roof). He said he was sorry to shock us but he did not want to leave us without an Ohm to live in.

He did tend to live, breathe and talk in electrical terms. As he explored, he uttered little whimpers of delight each time he found another loose connection or breach of BS7671:2018+A2:2022 (documents with which readers of HT will no doubt be not only fully familiar but will also be reading in preference to what is dished out on television or social media each evening)

So it was no surprise when he came to me and said that he could not get into our pantry because of resistance and impedance. By this he meant that it was so damned cluttered that he could not get a stepladder in to access a hatch above.

We had already had to clear out our coat and shoe racks to make way for a new fuse box. It is common knowledge that that socks vanish into the ether, especially when put into a washing machine. I had not, till then, realised that shoes and gloves have the same tendency.

It is sometimes even fashionable to wear non-matching socks. It is just acceptable to wear unpaired gloves. It certainly is not so with shoes, especially if the left shoe has a high heel and is size 6, and the right shoe is a trainer, size 10. Our house is supposed to be haunted, but it is difficult to think why even a quirky ghost would want to disappear so many single shoes. We put them in a pile hoping their sole mates would reappear but so far there have been no re-apparitions.

But back to the pantry. I should explain that it is nothing special, not a spacious area where past butlers and maids would gather to conspire against their lords and masters; not even somewhere to hang pheasants or gourds till they ripen. It has no deep porcelain sink, in which to gut rainbow trout caught from the estate lake (not a serious problem for us as our wildlife pond hosts mostly dragon flies and a pair of confused frogs).

It is none of those things - just little more than a walk in cupboard. Some years ago I lined it with wooden shelves which over time have come to tilt slightly, threatening to tip their contents onto unexpecting heads.

Tilting or not, the shelves became full. We brought in a small rack on wheels to take the surplus. When that filled up we started to deposit carrier bags full of foodstuff onto the floor; and when they became full we heaped more carrier bags on top of the already existing bags.

Reaching over the bags to the upper shelves became almost impossible, especially as the bottles of ketchup, cereal packets and jars of coffee were furthest away.

It was into that tidy arrangement that the electrician wanted to poke his stepladder.

There was no alternative but to pull out as many obstructions as we could and scatter them in heaps all over the kitchen floor. The electrician promptly disappeared through the hatch and was not seen again for hours. In the meantime, passage through the kitchen was almost impossible – and something had to be done.

I am not aware of any degree courses in pantry archeology run by even the scarletest of red brick universities. If there were, then I am sure that shoals of pantry archeologists would have wanted to descend on us and investigate.

In their absence I set to work with a large black bin bag. I found: jars of jam and sauces so ancient that even their sell-by date had faded, numerous opened packets sealed by bulldog clips, a solitary box of Weetabix with 3 forlorn biscuits inside, 2 unopened Christmas puddings that expired respectively in 2020 and 2021, a tin of custard that was best before 2006 and rows and rows of beans and chick peas, not to mention sardines. No wonder there is a shortage of the latter. They are all in our pantry.

The bin bag full of the more obviously outdated items, I crammed the rest back onto the precarious shelves and voilà we have a pantry back again, fit for even the most demanding electrician, though still with no room for the butler and maids.

“Watt a good job you have done” commented the electrician as he headed off to find more faults in our wiring.

The Harrowing Times is the official organ of the Norfolk Smallholders Training Group, an excellent organisation that provides support, courses and information (but – to reassure you – none from me) for those who fancy growing things or breeding agricultural animals. They can be found at https://www.nstg.org.uk