State of the Nineveh - pre-parental tidying

[nineveh_uk]

My parents are due to arrive on Thursday. Naturally I have thus spent a substantial proportion of the non-work element of the past couple of days cleaning and tidying. What I resent about this is that it isn't like my parents' current state of impressively spick and span was the norm when I was living at home! We were reasonably clean and tidy in the way that I am reasonably clean and tidy, and yet when they visit now I feel I must be in a state of perfect cleanliness, and that tidiness that can be achieved by shoving everything in drawers... Though I did have a useful hour at the weekend reducing two boxes of collage fodder/memento papers to one, thus allowing me to put emergency Brexit pasta supplies in the other. I have almost reached the point of thinking it is time to buy the tinned fish. Almost. Honestly, I think that one might just go by. Instead I am doing what is surely the archetypal middle-class Brexit panic and buying extra olive oil, and discount Green & Blacks. I am on holiday for a week in mid-March*, I can't leave it to chance!

On the plus side I have got to do this to the Alpine skiing world championships, which saw that very rare phenomenon in sports: two great competitors get to go out on a high with a medal, and yet not too early either. It is impossible not to like Aksel Lund Svindal. Lindsay Vonn I have to admit I find rather harder to appreciate - among other things, she has had times of being an obviously bad loser, which is never attractive in a person who wins a great deal - but she deserves significant credit for being prepared to say frankly she would refuse an invitation to the Trump White House prior to the Olympics, and dealing with the inevitable large amount of flak for it. And her talent and skill speaks for itself.

So, farewell runs to both.

"Aksel Lund Svindal | Silver Medal | Men's Downhill | Are | FIS World Alpine Ski Championships" (Watch on YouTube)

"Lindsey Vonn | Bronze Medal | Ladies' Downhill | Are | FIS World Alpine Ski Championships" (Watch on YouTube)

*And checking the webcam obsessively, of course.

ETA: Tidying the bedside/medicine cabinet. I'm definitely not going to need to stockpile medicine, I seem to have a habit of making sure I have a fresh packet of paracetamol/plasters every time I go on holiday...

Comments

[white_hart]

Surely it would be better to save the space to stockpile something you do like? (I like anchovies in theory but recently something about the combination of oily and salty seems to make me feel a bit sick, so I am not planning to stockpile them. Perhaps I should go for capers instead - same saltiness but less slimy.)

[nineveh_uk]

This is true. I just sort of feel one ought to have anchovies. And I foresee the prospect of getting very bored of tinned tomato based pasta sauces!

[perennialanna]

One does indeed get very bored of tinned tomato based pasta sauces. Or at least I have done, but the children haven't.

Parmesan can be grated straight from frozen (rather more readily than if kept in the fridge) and keeps much longer that way; a whole chorizo or salami keeps for a very long time in the fridge and cheers up the tinned tomatoes no end.

[antisoppist]

Last night's tea was tinned tomatoes, chorizo and chickpeas and I was thinking this is nice but we shouldn't be eating it now because we may have to live on it for months.

I am not stockpiling cheese because my little sister is currently manufacturing it and I am assuming she might perhaps post me some in a national emergency.

[nineveh_uk]

Chorizo would be a very good option. I have also got olives.

[antisoppist]

I have two jars (and the half jar in my fridge) but I really really like anchovies. I don't think you should stockpile things you hate either, but if you wind up with a surfeit, I will take them off your hands.

But if they are just for flavour if you've got to live on bowls of pasta, and you don't actually like the flavour, I'd go for those jars of Easy chillies/ginger/garlic instead (I have those too, partly because Son is currently putting Easy Chillies on everything).

[nineveh_uk]

I am switching from anchovies to chorizo. I was vaguely thinking that they count as protein, but not if you only have a quarter of one in your pasta sauce, they don't.

I hadn't thought of those jars of things. I ought to have them all the time, really!