Mid-month Musings - October

The Great Oven-Cleaning Saga Of 2023

Our oven has stopped working. It probably just needs a new element. My friend has given me the address of a local company which mends household appliances. They might also be able to mend the two gas rings on the hob that don't work and fit us a new fan in the downstairs toilet. So then all we'd need to fix is the kitchen taps... Our house is a never-ending minor disaster zone.

However, nothing is as simple as it sounds, is it?  When I looked at the oven properly - ie, not with my Awareness Level turned down to just a tad more than minimum - I realised it was disgustingly filthy. It didn't smell - the grime was burnt on. I couldn't expect an engineer to mess around in that muck so I needed to clean it.

                                        

                                                                      Days one and two

It's taken about ten days. And it's still not perfect.

Cleaning the oven has involved buying three bottles of specialist oven cleaning fluid that needs leaving on overnight, during which it turns the burnt-on grime into an utterly repulsive jellylike substance resembling the snot that came out of my nose after my first trip to London as a child. Each time I scraped away a layer of this awful stuff, it revealed yet another layer! 

  

Day eight

I discovered on the second day that you could take out the glass panels from the door, which made cleaning the door much easier, but it also meant the door had to be held open with one hand or by balancing something heavy on it, which didn't help with the task at all.

I also bought some of those bags for the racks where you pour in cleaning fluid and leave them overnight, then you can rinse off the melted gunk easily next day. That's the theory anyway. It took THREE bags and three nights, and the racks still aren't entirely burnt-on-gunk-free.

I also bought oven-cleaning sponges, a toothbrush-type thing for the nooks and crannies, rubber gloves and arm protectors - in retrospect, it would probably have been cheaper to just have it cleaned professionally, or even just buy a new bloody oven.

Anyway, It's done now and is just airing before I try to fit the shelf holders back into their slots in the sides and the glass panels back into their slots in the door [you just know they're not going to slot back in easily, don't you? - my sister has already had to show me how to fit the rubber seal back round the edges of the oven, as I couldn't find the tiny holes the little hooks fit into!].

   

Today - ta-dah!

The Diet

Just before I set off for the weekly Slimming World meetings, I find myself having weird thoughts. Should I cut my hair and fingernails? Trim my eyebrows? Do my shoes weigh more than the sandals I've worn up until recently, and if so would I look odd wearing sandals in an October rainstorm? In fact, how much does rainwater weigh? Is a long-sleeved T Shirt heavier than a flimsy polyester shirt? Should I take my earrings out - well, they're gold-plated and gold is heavy, isn't it?

Yes, despite the sensible part of my brain telling me I'm being absurd, I find myself nevertheless being sucked into the insanity of dieting. I think too much focus on your weight is unhealthy, and yet the Slimming World ethos is rubbing off on me. When you're weighed every week by a stranger, it rapidly becomes the focus of your emotional life. 

A fortnight ago, I was told I'd put on 1.5lbs, despite sticking strictly to the diet and doing aerobics exercise four times that week, and I was catapulted into the doldrums of disappointment. I was in fact quite shocked by how much of an impact this had on my emotional equilibrium, because I know that how fat I am doesn't really translate into how good a person I am. Yet, you just can't help that gnawing feeling of failure, can you?

I looked at the pattern of my weight loss since I began The Diet and discovered that every three or four weeks my weight has stayed the same or, on this one occasion, gone up. I know I get water-retention. I always have done and it used to make my weight increase, sometimes dramatically, when I was younger and went to Weightwatchers. So you'd think I would simply think 'Hey, it's just fluid-retention and I'll be back on track next week'. But I'm now post-menopausal and I didn't think I'd still get fluid-retention (even though I had all the other symptoms). Anyway, the following week, I'd lost 3lb, which clearly suggested the fluid-retention was over, and I went back to feeling good about myself.

I don't want my self-esteem to be linked solely to how many pounds I've lost that week. That way madness lies. But Slimming Clubs foster this mindset. So far, I've been given three certificates, two for being Slimmer Of The Week [thank god I didn't stay for the meetings, as I'd have gone home with a box of random veg] and one for losing a stone. I've tried saying 'Oh, please don't bother with that, I really don't....' before they glare at me and thrust the certificate into my hands as if it's part of some unspoken contract. 'Of course you want the certificate,' their eyes seem to say, 'not to mention the occasional stickers, because obviously you're a seven year old child...'. 

That's what dieting does for you. It turns you into a child relying on authority figures and arbitrary measurements for your sense of worth.

But I still need to lose weight. I'm feeling better for losing what I have lost so far, and the diet seems to be working, on the whole. So I will plough on. But I'm really going to try to change this weird mindset Slimming Clubs suck you into - one of competitiveness and seeing fat as 'bad'. You start to judge yourself and others by this single factor - how much excess fat are we carrying around? They use the language of support and encouragement, but their sole purpose is to help their members lose weight and they know what works. 

I have to keep reminding myself that Fat doesn't equal Bad Person, and that being obese doesn't make you a victim or a criminal. We live in a country where being fat is virtually an inevitability for most people. Humans have evolved to store fat to help them get through times of famine, which we in the developed world are very fortunate not to have to face. Some of us do it better than others. Being fat doesn't make you a glutton, and not losing any weight one week while you're dieting doesn't make you a feckless waste of space.

This week, I put on half a pound, despite being fairly strict all week. Bugger it, I thought, as I drove to my favourite Indian restaurant for a takeaway. Tonight I'm having an evening off.

I ate a bakewell tart today. It's a downward slope to more self-loathing....

Adventures In Culture

As you know, 2023 is my Year of Culture. I've seen opera, ballet, musical theatre, and - I admit it! - a few tribute acts. My latest experience was seeing Matthew Bourne's version of the ballet Romeo & Juliet, at Sheffield's Lyceum Theatre.

I'm a big fan of Matthew Bourne and his company, New Adventures In Motion Pictures. I enjoyed Nutcracker! [Lyceum] and Car Man [Young Vic], both of which I believe were produced by the earlier incarnation of his company, Adventures in Motion Pictures. He emerged at a point in history where ballet  was becoming staid and losing its popular appeal, and he injected a burst of energy and showmanship, humour and novelty into it, attracting audiences of people who had not been typical ballet-fanatics previously. 

        Romeo & Juliet was well-attended. The theatre was packed to the gills. The audience was vociferous in its shouts of praise as the dancers took their final curtain call. But I have to say that neither myself nor P were completely convinced by the performance and choreography this time.

        Shakespeare's play has been reinterpreted many times and I think this is an excellent thing, though this particular reinterpretation seemed to be only tangentially connected to the original play. Maybe if it had been called something different [as with West Side Story], we would have taken our seats in the dress circle with more open minds, but, as it used Prokofiev's famous score [the best thing about this production], I suppose it had to acknowledge its origins.

        The action took place in some sort of institution, though it was unclear whether this was a 1950s asylum for the mentally ill, a prison or a futuristic place where non-conformists were incarcerated. The inmates were all young and were segregated by gender except during closely supervised official events. Friar Laurence was transformed into a female vicar who tried to help these young people; Tybalt was a vicious guard who abused Juliet; Benvolio, Mercutio and Balthazar were friends who supported each other inside the institution - Benvolio and Balthazar were lovers; Paris was a female friend of Juliet's. Romeo was a young man with strange behaviours whose wealthy, politically-aspirational parents placed him in the institution presumably to avoid him embarrassing them and damaging their campaign. 

        So, contemporary issues of same-sex relationships, sexual predators, power conflicts, the treatment of the mentally-ill or anyone deemed to be an outsider, and corrupt politicians were all incorporated. 

        Romeo and Juliet fall in love, though they might have been any two young people falling in love - there was little to suggest any social barrier between Romeo's family and Juliet's. The barrier was entirely external, comprising the strict rules and controlling nature of the institution itself and possibly the jealousy of the abusive guard. After a dance organised by the kindly chaplain - a dance which appeared to end in a sexual frenzy - the two lovers showed their intense feelings for each other. They are subsequently married by the chaplain in a secret ceremony but afterwards there is a dramatic scene where the guard stabs Mercutio - or does he shoot him? I am already forgetting, and I only saw it last night! -  and then Romeo [and Juliet too] strangle the guard with his belt. This is all very dramatic and effectively choreographed, but the young murderer doesn't appear to be put on trial - instead he is kept in the institution in confinement. 

        However, in one of the best scenes, the chaplain sneaks Juliet into his room so they can consummate their marriage and Juliet hallucinates seeing the abusive guard and stabs Romeo, believing him to be this guard. In a rather ridiculous climax, Romeo, despite having experienced what looks like a wound to his femoral artery, manages to dance a pas-de-deux with Juliet during which he picks her up repeatedly - she then stabs herself, giving herself a wound that seems identical to his, yet she dies immediately. They are laid on a slab together and that's where it ends - no reconciliation between warring houses, no justice or outcries against the system or anything that would raise this story above the run of tragic love stories.  

        Nevertheless, we could have coped with this problematic storyline, had it not been for the rather lacklustre choreography. There were good bits, but it seemed a bit tired and samey. There were lots of messing about with chairs and beds, and some passionate love scenes, and the music was brilliant, but we actually felt that the dancing sometimes lacked sharpness. I actually thought the dancers of the Northern Ballet's Great Gatsby production which I saw earlier in the year were better, but I suspect it was the choreography as much as anything that was a bit off, as the main duo were clearly excellent dancers.

Also, our seats were very uncomfortable. The Lyceum is a beautiful old theatre, restored in the 1980s, but its seats are quite narrow and not as soft as they might be. This is a problem with a lot of old theatres. They were designed for thinner and less spoiled people - audiences who hadn't experienced the comfort of modern theatres like the National or even The Crucible, and who certainly hadn't experienced the comparative luxury of a modern multiplex cinema. It was also very hot. Why don't they open the bloody doors? Traditional theatres vary in the amount of leg-room and the size of the individual seats, but most are fairly uncomfortable in my experience. And we were sitting in some of the most expensive seats in the house, yet we still had a very slightly restricted view. Under such conditions, you've got to be fully-absorbed by the performance in order to overcome the discomfort.

Other productions I've seen this Summer:

The Mikado and Pirates of Penzance at Buxton Opera House - both wonderful, and the seats were more comfy too, though still not as good as they could be.

Another tribute to Simon and Garfunkel, this time at the Winding Wheel Theatre in Chesterfield - we enjoyed it, but we both thought the one we saw earlier in the year at Cast in Doncaster was a little better. However, we liked the Winding Wheel Theatre and we went with two friends we hadn't seen for ages, which was lovely.