a light dinner preparation

I am just in the process of making a chicken curry following a recipe I found in the hairy bikers cookbook my sister Anne gave me.So far it looks very promising.Later I shall make a channa masala, cucumber and onion raita, sag aloo (coz I got loads of sag and am not short of an aloo or two), boiled rice (basmati of course) and something made from courgettes and aubergines ( that's zucchini and egg plants for the uninitiated or berenjena y no tengo idea ).The chicken curry has been prepared and will cook slowly for a further hour.All this grub will, of course, be washed down with wine and no it won't be served in a poncey fashion. I don't do presentation.If my guests want that they will have to venture to the modern Tate gallery where I am sure they will find something that will appeal to their visual senses

There comes a time in one's life when one has to take stock and make the kind of decision most of us would rather not do if only because it reflects one unending truth about life i.e. as we get older, we become slower, weaker and less agile.I say this because I recently completed a task which, in hindsight ,I should probably have left alone given all the above plus the fact that I didn't have at my disposal the kind equipment that would have rendered the task quite straightforward.By that I mean a mobile platform and a motorized pole cutter to compliment my existing hedge cutters.

The task in question involved the heavy trimming of a massively overgrown Leylandii hedge which was all of 15 ft high by 10 ft deep across the top.The width of the hedge was not an issue but the greenhouse which butted against it was.Such hedges at the very least should be trimmed once a year but Mr. W, its owner, decided to let it grow for two years which meant that the branches standing proudly were very much thicker than normal and in some cases, at least 1 inch in diameter.

When I first looked at the hedge my mind was still at the 30-year-old stage and I saw it as a challenge for it is quite normal for a superannuated old git to think he can do things he used to do, that is until he is faced with cold hard realities.Old father time is never kind on one's basic faculties so much so when I finally finished cutting the bloody thing I quickly came to the conclusion that my body was no longer the lithe machine I expected it to be. By that time I was trying to work out what words to use to MR W which might be a politer version of "from now on you can stick your hedge up your arse" Then again I like him so I maintained a stoical silence only betrayed by the thinnest of smiles 

A regular extending ladder was never going be enough, especially with that farking glasshouse in the way so I bought some stabilizers which I attached to it thus transforming it into a de facto very tall step ladder.Fine, except the stabilizer plus ladder was extremely fiddly to assemble and time-consuming to use.The words "boludo ,me cago en la puta que lo pario" and whatever English variants I could think of ,gushed out of my mouth with complete alacrity.

As time went on I came to the conclusion that such a ladder was never going to be enough.Fine around the greenhouse provided I took my time and was extra careful, but the rest of the hedge was going to need something a lot more robust i.e. a 12 high double width scaffold tower,(about half the height of this http://www.laddersandscaffoldtowers.co.uk/…/Industrial-Scaf…).

I thought assembling it would be a piece of piss and that I could complete the whole job in a day.WRONG! .I asked the delivery bloke if it was quite straightforward.He gave me a rueful look, took a deep breath of air and proceeded to explain what to do, ending with a "once you have done it once it's normally quite simple but I would rather you gave me a ring if you find yourself struggling with it because there is a knack to getting the higher level on top of the other" 

Nice chap I thought, but my the 30-year-old brain was having none of that.I was going to get that contraption assembled on my own no matter what.Fortunately, I had a step ladder to help me on my endeavours although it still meant raising the side sections to at least head height. Then I placed the 9 foot long boards, two one level and the remaining two on the other By the time I finished my 62-year-old body kicked in and I was totally fooked.No more work for me that day, I decided.

Next day I roped Nelly in to give us a hand.She was proper good she was, raking all the cuttings, disposing of them and helping me drag the tower along and around the hedge as and when required.For cutting purposes, I used a regular hedge cutter, a long handled hedge cutter, a pair of loppers and a long handled lopper. All told we spent a good 5-6 hours, at the end of which the end result looked pretty good.Then the dismantling.Fuck it, I thought, I'll do that tomorrow.
That didn't take too long but it was almost as arduous as assembling it due to the weight and my paranoid fear of dropping a section somewhere unwanted such as a greenhouse.At the end of it all I gave a deep sigh of relief and vowed not to do it again