Dream kitchen

Just as I have previously minimised the time I like to spend contemplating the relative merits of dishwashing detergents, I am equally baffled by the phrase ‘dream kitchen’. Is it weird of me that I very rarely dream about kitchens? Except perhaps in darker moods as somewhere to find sharp knives. And if I do ever have a kitchen-based dream, I don’t think the actual design and layout of the units features very strongly; I’m pretty sure it’s the stuff actually going on in the dream kitchen, or kitchen dream, that’s of relevance. If I did ever have a dream in which I was admiring the beveling on a granite worksurface, I hope I’d have the decency to wake myself up in a cold sweat.

Trial #4: Verdict and vouchers

I shall keep you in suspense no longer. I know you’ve been on tenterhooks waiting to here what The Midlife Manual, one of the hand-selected jurors asked by Finish to trial what they are calling ‘a revolutionary new detergent dispenser system’ and we’re calling Finish QuantuMatic (that being what it’s called), thinks of QuantuMatic.

The first surprise is that for the first time in my life I actually have an opinion about a dishwashing detergent.

The second is that I never thought I’d find myself typing the following sentence: this really is the best dishwashing detergent I’ve ever used.

Spring clean madness: Trial #3

My glasses! My glasses! (to be said in a Velma-from-Scooby-Doo voice)

It may be because it’s Spring, it may have been my recent visit to the Ideal Home Show, it may be because we are about to have out decrepit, mouse-infested kitchen that bits are literally dropping off replaced with a shiny new one, it may be that I have a month’s free supply of dishwasher detergent at my disposal, or it may be that I’ve run out of displacement activities, but I’ve suddenly got the urge for some extreme cleaning.

Midlife on the march

I’ve been reading Laurie Penny’s (@PennyRed) account of Saturday’s TUC march on the New Statesman blog and I have to say it bares no relation to the march I went on. Warzone? Burning barricades? Young people?

Here’s the Midlife version:

The Dinner Party: Trial #2

‘We want it to be real,’ they said. ‘Real people in real situations.’

Which is how I came to be being photographed in my kitchen at 9.30am with a raging hangover, trying to look relaxed and happy beside a table full of greasy plates, meat bones, our unfeasibly large ‘guest’ wine glasses with the dregs of a very fine Rioja, some oozing Chaource, and a nearly empty bottle of genuine Russian vodka.

Great Midlife Debates: dishwasher detergent

When exactly did we get to the age when we stopped having opinions about new bands or exactly where to draw on eyeliner, and started worrying about things like dishwasher detergent?

I ask because the Midlife Manual has been selected by Finish as one of 12 bloggers to trial, over the next couple of weeks, what they are calling ‘a revolutionary new detergent dispenser system’ and I’m calling Finish QuantuMatic, that being what it’s called.

Ideal Home Show

Ideal Home Show 2011

Live blog from the first day of the Ideal Home Show, Friday 11 March…

The Midlife Dream Home

When you got your first place, you had nothing to furnish it with save a camping stove, a futon and some Reject Shop crockery in primary colours.

These days you want quality. You want craftsmanship. You want character. You want a handmade oak table that’s been sanded to perfection and a pepper mill with a state-of-the-art grinder.

Marketing people reel you in with phrases like ‘dream kitchen’, but have you ever stopped to wonder when you last had an actual dream about a kitchen? One that didn’t involve sharp knives or unrealistically good-looking tradesmen?

Here is The Midlife Manual’s checklist of the ultimate midlife home:

Even charity shop workers look young these days

It was the school quiz night last night: 100 repressed parents let out for one night + cheap alcohol… But aside from people getting overly competitive and quibbling over the Ancient Greek site for the Olympics (first prize you understand was cheap chocs from Macro), 80s parents mistaking EMF for Curiosity Killed the Cat, people trying to steal the plastic shot glasses, and the school-disco frisson of wearing a low-cut top and drinking alcohol in the school hall, the main thing that occurred to me was, ‘Bloody Hell! Reception parents look young these days!

Midlife preoccupations: January

Some of the things on our minds this month:

Is going to the gym/joining a pilates class in January too much of a cliché? (ditto dieting, not drinking) Should you wait till March to seem less predictable?

Is it worth watching Upstairs Downstairs at this stage, or should you just delete it from Sky+ to make room for Zen?

Zen v Wallander?