The Cottage Smallholder

Baby turnip with frothy leaves

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. Lots of really useful information and food for thought. In fact I reckon that the comments are far more valuable than the post!

Danny informed me last night that he doesn’t want to grapple with a black shower bag and hand pumped sprayer. He’d rather stay dirty or boil a kettle and have a strip wash. Do you remember strip washes? We used to have these at boarding school in between bath nights.

So an efficient shower that heats only the water that’s needed is now on the top of his wish list. Heating an entire tank of water just for a shower is just crazy. It’s also good to know that immersion heaters are a no-no too. They are one of the things that I remember always caused agro when flat sharing. Someone always seemed to get in before me and use up all the water. Soaking in a bath so deep that it slopped onto the floor and eventually onto my desk below.

Thinking about those baths – I used to share them at university with my friend Jane. Desperate to hit the one night spot in Hull that we liked (Scamps? disco – early 1970’s) we wanted to bathe within an hour. We would lie back, legs placed to the side so that two people could relax and sip a glass of Hirondelle wine.

And mucking about in the bath back then, I discovered a trick that could be fun even in these more sophisticated days. We called it the Frothing Sea Monster. To do this trick you do need to be careful that you only use an ultra clean bath sponge (just out of the washing machine) and you probably need written permission from your parents or doctor. Never use a sponge that is small enough to become lodged in your throat.

A large bath sponge can be compressed into a very small object that can be hidden in your mouth. OK you can’t talk, so you need to time this trick well and distract other’s attention whilst you get the sponge in place. A baby sponge will do but one of those very holey bigger bathe sponges would be better as they can compress right down to virtually nothing.

When you open your mouth the sponge springs out of your lips in a wonderful rush. Causing alarm and eventually amusement. I’ve just tested out this trick on D and he loved it. Horror, surprise and then roars of laughter. Followed quickly by the hesitant remark,
“Is that the sponge from under the sink that we use for cleaning the bath?”
He clearly thinks that I’m happy to sacrifice anything in pursuit of a joke.

It was actually a new baby sponge from a multi pack. And no, back in those uni days I didn’t bother to launder the sponge!