The Terminator

Just as Now and I were passing a very nice afternoon of bicycle maintenance outside the house, along came this man in a peaked hat carrying a display case of poisons. He must be the exterminator I had spent Friday waiting at home for, but who never came.

Naomi and I have a cockroach problem, which I think is quite normal here, but even I, who has a pretty high tolerance to cockroaches, feel a bit squeamish when I come into the kitchen at night and turn the light on and find a hundred little cockroaches scuttling out of the just-washed-up washing up.

So with the help of Now and £7.50, we called in the terminator.



We established that we should take all the plates and cups out onto the balcony, and then left him to his work. When I had to come back in for a screwdriver, I couldn't breath, and when I tried, my heart raced uncontrolably.

But we seem to be free-ish of the little mites, and we had a lovely evening of cooking fish for friends and, joy of all joy, eating steamed chocolate pudding.

I have become something of a master at steamed pudding, mostly because we don't have an oven and as an ex-baker, I feel I have to get some kind of rising action in my life every now and then. Last night I made a cracker. First I took it out when it was only half cooked and watched ut collapse onto a plate. Then I tried to put it back in the steamer but ripped the tin-foil so that all the steam could get in and water soaked through the pudding which it was on its second bake. The result was a slightly wonky but incredibly moist and gooey pudding which we all agreed was the best I have made yet.

I had brought some Bird's Custard Powder back from England and Cecilia and I spent 15 minutes lovingly stirring it in the kitchen, watching it thicken up, talking about how it made us think of home and all things good. Went to taste it. Spat it out. I'd mixed up the sugar with the salt. It's been a long bloody week.