Day of the Kraken

Once upon a time there was a small scientific outpost, manned only by a lonely botanist and agronomist, and her highly intelligent robot assistant. The robot was called Dewi, in a lame homage to "Silent Running".



The scientific outpost was dedicated to the development of giant fruits and vegetables, to try and stave off the world food shortage, and that.

They had had early, if moderate, success, and were quietly excited about their new Ultra Courgettes and the Really Giant Tomato. The scientific press was beginning to take an interest, and even politicians had been asking questions about the work being undertaken at this remote, coastal outpost.



Yes, it was on the coast. Because of the prevailing wind. Or something.

Anyhoo.

One day as they were out conducting their scientific experiments, polishing the tomato and poking the courgette with a rake, a hideous tentacled creature from the deep emerged. It saw the giant fruits and vegetables, and it lusted after them with all the strength of its vile black heart.



The scientist and Dewi were too engrossed in their work to even see the creature, who sniggered to itself and slunk back into the sea to get some backup.



The scientist and the robot were taken entirely by surprise! They fought with all of their ability, but the wooden rake was no match for the mighty tentacles, and the robot was frankly crap in a fight.





The hideous squid monsters simply battered the scientist and the robot, and wrapped their long rubbery tentacles around the giant vegetables, stealing them away to their homes under the ocean. Probably to make a nice salad.





The scientist and Dewi lay, dead, in the ruin of their dreams for a better, more fruity and vegetably world.

The evil squid monsters laughed amongst themselves, scuttling back home with their stolen spoils.

The bastards.



The End.

Missed!

Dinotopia has been on all week, on Channel 5 at 0900, and I missed it! Gah!

Have to wait till next Christmas now.

So. What did Santa bring you? Were you good? Did you get coal in your stocking? Mind you, nowadays a stocking full of coal is not a gift to be sniffed at.

It's been bloody freezing here for days. We've had ice on the cars and the shed roof that hasn't melted for ages, and the birds are using their bath as a freestyle dance rink.

Mr WithaY has it on good authority (some people in the pub) that we are due a hot summer. I will be waiting for that with great excitement. Winter seems to have been going on since about May last year. Apparently it's going to snow on Monday. Perfect. Just in time for everyone* going back to work, and the trains trying to remember how to run. I think I will take my overnight bag just in case.

This weekend we have mostly been sorting out Father in Law WithaY's kitchen cupboards. He moved into the nursing home on Christmas Eve, and is slowly (and rather painfully) settling in. He has a lovely big room, and we are gradually bringing in pictures, books and small items of furniture from his house so it feels more like home.

But, and it is a big but**, he is finding it hard to deal with the fact that all the other residents are old, frail and in a couple of cases, bonkers. And who can blame him? Still, he looks clean, fed, warm and safe, which is a huge improvement on how things were a month or so ago.

And when all is said and done, he has only been there a few days. The fact that we can get to see him three or four times a week is certainly a bonus, as he is fretting about his house and so on, and we can reassure him that stuff is getting sorted.

But going back to the kitchen cupboards. Oh my.

Oh my oh my oh my. The things we found.

My favourites were (in no particular order):

1) Three inches of flat cider in the bottom of a large plastic cider bottle from four years ago.

2) A wide variety of jars of spices, none more recent than 1995, some coagulated into hard-as-concrete lumps which had to be coaxed out of the jars with the aid of a long steel skewer.

3) Six pecan nuts (shelled) in a screw-top glass jar.

4) A box of Tate&Lyle "Fairrie" Small Cube Sugar, in a pre-decimal box. I have been searching the Tate&Lyle website to try and establish an age for it. I may post a photo to see if anyone out there can give me an approximate date of maufacture. It must be from the 1970s, possibly earlier.

5) A giant glass jar of what I thought were green lentils, but which, on closer examination, turned out to be red lentils covered in thick green mould and dust. Opening the jar was like a scene from a low budget sci-fi movie where the mad scientist unleashes the deadly gas cloud on the world. The bottom two inches of solid lentil/mould compound had to be soaked in hot water, until the coaxing skewer was deployed.

Other news: Back to work on Monday. Am quite looking forward to it. It will be nice to get back to some semblance of normality again.

Plans for tomorrow include taking down all the Christmas decorations, including Mr WithaY's Blair Witch creation in the hallway. We are also going grocery shopping for the first time since December 22nd, as we have finally eaten our way through all the festive food. Except the dates, which I found in a drawer yesterday.



*me
**much like my own