42

Of the many unanswerable questions in life, I must ponder this:

Why, in a household of people-who-don't-really-drink-tea, do we have an entire tea cupboard?



(there are more boxes hidden behind too).

Mars, by the way, have decided against universal meatyness, but we're still awaiting confirmation that they're not going to continue doing the 'check the code' thing.

Mars Barred (groan*)

As well as Nestle, the Odeon and Patrick Moore, I can now add the Mars company to my list of boycotts.

Mars, who have been on previously iffy grounds for having some products which were suitable for vegetarians, and some that weren't** without indicating which were which, have decided to make *all* their chocolates meaty.

Mars - who seem to think they should be lauded for being "honest" (and there I thought companies were legally obliged to list their ingredients) - are under the impression that "a less strict vegetarian should enjoy our chocolate."

I do hate to break it to them, but someone who enjoys eating meaty chocolates isn't a vegetarian.



* Yes yes I know, it's dreadful, but seriously - it had to be done.
** And on even more iffy grounds, the non-vegetarian products were also not Halal.

A new line

I realise that I haven't written much anything about our new house.

Our new house is bigger than our old flat, although appears to be just as rammed with stuff. Whereas our old flat had dodgy heating due to the storage heaters, the back of our house (the 'solar') is always baking, whereas the front (the kitchen) is so bloody freezing we've been living here for over 2 months and still haven't needed to buy a fridge/freezer.

Our old bathroom had no heating and a knackered bathroom suite, whereas our new bathroom is brand new with a heated towel rail (hello baths in winter!), yet does not have a mirror, lock, shaving point or toilet roll holder (seriously, who goes to the effort of installing a new bathroom and thinks that a toilet roll holder is an unneeded luxury?).

The main difference is the view:



As you can see, our old view was a lovely one of the Cotswold hills. Yet it was tempered by the fact I was taunted - yay, taunted - on a daily basis by everyone else's washing lines. For we had no washing line, and it was very traumatic for an environmentalist of my standing to have no option, due to lack of decent general room heating (other than mildewey clothes) than using a tumble dryer.

But now look - look!



Yes, there is a giant fence and the rooves of council-built 30s semis, and it's not like the view goes on as far as the eye can see, but look, my own washing line. Oh, how it fills me with joy. Now I can not only get that line-dried-freshness by actually line-drying, but I also get to use my novelty pegs, bought as a house-warming present back when I moved to Cheltenham, and lain unused for the better part of 18 months: