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Blancmange
Dec. 24th, 2025 10:01 amI am having a third good day in succession. That hasn't happened since the beginning of December. While I'm not quite right yet, I'm definitely running in the 90% range, and that is encouraging. Yesterday I put up the decorations a day early in case I felt rough again today, and I made banana loaf (which I don't quite need yet, but it freezes well, plus I didn't want the bananas to go all yucky); today I have some slow-cooker casserole lined up for lunch, so I think the most energetic thing I have to do is make some tofu pesto spread. (Which isn't very energetic. I can do most of that sitting down.)
I also haven't yet mentioned that I went to see the GP on Monday, who says I'm doing all the right things to manage it (other than compression stockings, which with a fair wind I may be able to avoid; I don't want to have to wear them if I can help it, as they'd be a nightmare in summer), and also thinks I may have something wrong with my inner ear, which would explain why I tend to get dizzy sometimes even when lying down. So she's given me some gentle exercises to help fix that if it's the case. She also put me through a formal pre-assessment for autism; if you score 6 or more on that test, they do further investigations. Not remotely to my surprise, I scored 1; so hopefully that one has been finally put to bed.
And other than that... last night, for some reason, a bunch of us got into conversation about drains, and specifically the cleaning thereof. Several people mentioned the difficulty of cleaning "sink siphons", and initially I thought this was some strange kind of modern fitting that I don't have on my sink and have never seen on any other sink; but after a bit I realised they just meant the sink trap (which is not a siphon, and if it is siphoning then you have a problem). And, as almost inevitably happens, that reminded me of something.
When I was at university, I had two friends called Sian (without the accent) and Robin, who were also friends with each other. Sian and I discovered that Robin had a birthday coming up, so Sian decided we ought to make him a birthday cake, and we therefore asked him what sort he would like. We got a surprising answer: he didn't really fancy a cake. What he'd like most of all was a blancmange.
Sian lived in a hall of residence at the time and didn't have access to a proper kitchen. I was in a student flat, so I did. Therefore, I got the job of making this blancmange. We bought one of those mixed packs - two sachets in each of three flavours - and I used three of the sachets, layering them in a large rectangular tub. I then very carefully carried this tub round to Sian's, with instructions to turn it out onto a suitable plate once it was set (I think I may also have brought the plate, but it was a long time ago, so I don't entirely remember). Robin had been invited round to Sian's the following morning, and the plan was that I'd arrive shortly before he did.
Now I have no idea what happened that night, because Sian was normally a model of patience; but for some reason it entirely deserted her on this occasion, and she couldn't resist turning out the blancmange before she went to bed. It may well have been set on top, but it was most certainly not set all the way through. I'm pretty sure I'd explicitly told her to leave it overnight... but, anyway, she didn't, and the consequences were entirely predictable. She had put the plate over her washbasin in case of any spillage, and of course the whole lot simply glooped down the plughole. When I arrived, I found a very sheepish Sian with a confession and a lot of apologies.
"Don't worry," I said. "We still have the rest of the blancmange. I'll go round to Robin's and get him to come here tomorrow instead, and meanwhile I'll make up another one."
She was relieved at that; but it turned out she hadn't yet quite told me the full story. She had also had to call one of the hall porters to unblock her washbasin. He'd come along and done that, but when he'd finished, he'd looked at her and asked her what that stuff was down there. "It wasn't just hair, was it?" he said.
Sian's self-possession never faltered for very long. She gave him a brilliant smile.
"Blancmange," she explained.
"Blancmange?!"
"Blancmange."
Sian, I might add, had such an air of unassailable confidence almost all the time that she'd successfully held down a job as a bouncer in one of Liverpool's roughest nightclubs, despite standing somewhere below 160 cm and not being especially heavy of build. Faced with that, the hall porter decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that he was going to ask no further questions. I truly wish I'd been there at the time.
Anyway. I went and postponed Robin, made up the second blancmange, left it a bit longer this time before taking it round to Sian's, and all went without a hitch the following day. He did offer us some, but neither of us actually liked blancmange; so he ate the whole thing himself, in one sitting. I was impressed.
And now you know why I can't hear about blocked drains without automatically thinking about blancmange.
I also haven't yet mentioned that I went to see the GP on Monday, who says I'm doing all the right things to manage it (other than compression stockings, which with a fair wind I may be able to avoid; I don't want to have to wear them if I can help it, as they'd be a nightmare in summer), and also thinks I may have something wrong with my inner ear, which would explain why I tend to get dizzy sometimes even when lying down. So she's given me some gentle exercises to help fix that if it's the case. She also put me through a formal pre-assessment for autism; if you score 6 or more on that test, they do further investigations. Not remotely to my surprise, I scored 1; so hopefully that one has been finally put to bed.
And other than that... last night, for some reason, a bunch of us got into conversation about drains, and specifically the cleaning thereof. Several people mentioned the difficulty of cleaning "sink siphons", and initially I thought this was some strange kind of modern fitting that I don't have on my sink and have never seen on any other sink; but after a bit I realised they just meant the sink trap (which is not a siphon, and if it is siphoning then you have a problem). And, as almost inevitably happens, that reminded me of something.
When I was at university, I had two friends called Sian (without the accent) and Robin, who were also friends with each other. Sian and I discovered that Robin had a birthday coming up, so Sian decided we ought to make him a birthday cake, and we therefore asked him what sort he would like. We got a surprising answer: he didn't really fancy a cake. What he'd like most of all was a blancmange.
Sian lived in a hall of residence at the time and didn't have access to a proper kitchen. I was in a student flat, so I did. Therefore, I got the job of making this blancmange. We bought one of those mixed packs - two sachets in each of three flavours - and I used three of the sachets, layering them in a large rectangular tub. I then very carefully carried this tub round to Sian's, with instructions to turn it out onto a suitable plate once it was set (I think I may also have brought the plate, but it was a long time ago, so I don't entirely remember). Robin had been invited round to Sian's the following morning, and the plan was that I'd arrive shortly before he did.
Now I have no idea what happened that night, because Sian was normally a model of patience; but for some reason it entirely deserted her on this occasion, and she couldn't resist turning out the blancmange before she went to bed. It may well have been set on top, but it was most certainly not set all the way through. I'm pretty sure I'd explicitly told her to leave it overnight... but, anyway, she didn't, and the consequences were entirely predictable. She had put the plate over her washbasin in case of any spillage, and of course the whole lot simply glooped down the plughole. When I arrived, I found a very sheepish Sian with a confession and a lot of apologies.
"Don't worry," I said. "We still have the rest of the blancmange. I'll go round to Robin's and get him to come here tomorrow instead, and meanwhile I'll make up another one."
She was relieved at that; but it turned out she hadn't yet quite told me the full story. She had also had to call one of the hall porters to unblock her washbasin. He'd come along and done that, but when he'd finished, he'd looked at her and asked her what that stuff was down there. "It wasn't just hair, was it?" he said.
Sian's self-possession never faltered for very long. She gave him a brilliant smile.
"Blancmange," she explained.
"Blancmange?!"
"Blancmange."
Sian, I might add, had such an air of unassailable confidence almost all the time that she'd successfully held down a job as a bouncer in one of Liverpool's roughest nightclubs, despite standing somewhere below 160 cm and not being especially heavy of build. Faced with that, the hall porter decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that he was going to ask no further questions. I truly wish I'd been there at the time.
Anyway. I went and postponed Robin, made up the second blancmange, left it a bit longer this time before taking it round to Sian's, and all went without a hitch the following day. He did offer us some, but neither of us actually liked blancmange; so he ate the whole thing himself, in one sitting. I was impressed.
And now you know why I can't hear about blocked drains without automatically thinking about blancmange.
