Life without refrigeration

It was probably my fault.

Last week, I remember cramming some rabbit halves into the downstairs bit of our fridge-freezer, ignorant of the fact I was supposed to leave space clear around the fan at the back. (I didn't even know there was a fan at the back. I've written instruction manuals from time to time, but haven't read many.)

The device made uncharacteristic noises for a day or so, and then began to lose its cool.

Of course, I panicked.

I shot into Bergerac and spent a large-ish amount of money on a small-ish A+ chest freezer (which we needed anyway, having taken up space in two friends' freezers since butchering the last pig in the Spring). Then I read (see how quickly things change - suddenly I'm reading already) that our new freezer needed to sit for 24 hours before being turned on; and left for another 58 hours to get down to temperature.

Argh.

So I borrowed some space in a neighbour's freezer (they're on holiday and I had the key - they'll never know) to save our precious meat and started to cool down myself.

Since then, we've re-discovered how dependent we are on refrigeration. The emergency coolbox and freezer blocks have been fine up to a point, but without a spring nearby, there's no ready supply of cold beers and instantly drinkable rosé. Carrots go off remarkably quickly when left on the kitchen table. There's no sense in buying dairy products in any quantity (once again, exposing our lack of goat or access to cow). And the dumping ground on top of the freezer is valuable space our small kitchen feels even smaller without (especially as the new chest freezer is in there, behind the door, where a useful work surface used to be).

The good news is, the fridge-freezer has probably been fixed and may even be sitting in the kitchen right now (I'm at work for the day). The other good news is, we have the chest freezer that marks another step (bizarrely) down the road to self sufficiency. And finally, we had enough money to get through the emergency.

Now, if I can only get the phone working again, we'll have it all.