So, I'm still thinking about the electric rice cooker. But I'm no longer thinking about the 30cm electric skillet - that arrived about a week ago along with a proper el-cheapo electric kettle I no longer need the jug and funnel to get the 1.7L of water into.

Yes, alright, the truth is, one - I really truly madly desperately needed that 30cm electric skillet. And er, well, two - I found JUST what I was looking for whilst browsing eBayUK for vintage latch hook rug making supplies. Buying kettle and skillet together from the same seller (on one of those 'Buy Now!' product pages) meant free post and nearly £5 saved on what I would have had to pay on AmazonUK (erm, well, yes, another favourite shopping-online site). It was a no-brainer, really it was, to buy those two kitchen essentials. So, I did.

Currently the electric skillet is being hidden in my sewing room under a pile of craft supplies my husband knows better than to even look at (my father didn't raise a total idiot no matter how much he thought he might have). Not sure when I'll casually introduce it to use, perhaps once I really get my horribly small kitchen reorganised (no, really, this is set to happen in this week, actually). The kettle is hiding next to the coffee pot my husband finally admitted he has to stop using (owing to something in coffee, caf or decaf, making his other conditions less manageable) - I'll bring it out for use sometime over the next week or so.

Oddly enough, I had recently replaced the hand mixer he lost during one of his Asperger's induced reorganising frenzies. Last night (here's the oddly part) I dreamt I woke up to hear him using the replaced hand mixer. He uses (frequently) the 42cm electric skillet to make his one and only speciality - beef or chicken curry, and uses the electric can opener now exclusively. I have a display shelf in the kitchen for 'kitchenalia' (ancient scales, equally ancient non-electric post-war hand mixer with genuine Bakelite grip, etc) and he suggested a few days ago his much loved non-electric hand can opener may be put on display there.

As for his Asperger's induced cleaning frenzies, after the last one (the kitchen one) he now fully understands he MUST control/restrain his frenzies to HIS and ONLY HIS areas - MINE ARE PERMANENTLY NO-GO ZONES!!! I pitched such a fit (lasting three days, and frankly still festering), and made such a threat ('God dammit, I will DIVORCE you if you do not stop throwing out things I need to run this household!') he actually asked permission for months after to even go in the kitchen.

Of course I felt horribly guilty about 'terrorising' the poor man. Until he decided my sewing-crafts supplies cupboard in the former airing cupboard would be better off in the bl--dy loft I can't get to owing to my dodgy knees and shoulder...I went to retrieve some cushion filling to plump the sofa  throw cushions just before autumn 2017 and found he'd moved the very things I told him NOT TO EVEN LOOK AT MUCH LESS MOVE SOMEWHERE I CAN'T GET TO! Grrrr, that sore point is still festering - those cushions desperately need plumping but I STILL can't get him to be bothered to climb into the loft and bring those ginormous bags (lifetime supply, really, and wowsa did I get those two bags on a tremendous Amazon offer!) back down where I can use them.

These frenzies are much loved, btw, by the skip workers and the local charity shops, and they wait with baited breath for his next one. When they see me out and about they brazenly dare to ask when he'll be doing his next 'clearing out'. Heh.

During one of his earliest frenzies he sent several boxes of stunning vintage Christmas baubles, vintage linens, and most of my off-season bl--dy clothing, ffs, to the charity shops. In another he sent a Hamilton Beech stand mixer (fully complete, perfect working order, and will cost close to £300 to replace, dammit) and blender to the skip. TO THE SKIP, WTF was he thinking?! I found out later those appliances were 'gratefully received and rehomed' by the local homeless charity - the skip workers know my husband and know if I am not in the motor when he arrives with something to deposit they should check his items for re-usability. Dammit.

Generally we bumble along nicely, and so nicely at that I do forget sometimes his Asperger's, and lose patience. But not often. Generally he's like most men of his generation, and it's best to use time-honoured 'workarounds' like putting a new garment/kitchen gadget/insert item type here at the back of the cupboard so when it is discovered the hider can honestly say to the finder-discoverer 'But really, we've had that for yonks, don't you remember?!'.

I've been encouraged by other Aspie wives/partners to write a book advising how to make living with an Aspie less, erm, frustrating. But I'm busy at the moment - I've recently rediscovered latch hook rug making and am writing a pamphlet on that topic.

I'll spare you, gentle reader, my over-enthusiasm that can set me off for pages and pages and pages on the wonders and Zen of latch hook rug making, and simply state a properly hooked and cared for rug lasts several generations but there exist no dedicated short book (really not enough about it to make it past 100 or so pages at most) making this craft accessible to the would-be rugger. So, I'm doing it.

A friend in America went looking for a new craft, saw a latch hook rug kit and bought it. This led her to searching eBay and Etsy for latch hook things, and those searches led her to vintage, and before she knew it she'd won a job lot with several vintage unworked painted canvas'. When she admitted her new obsession, and was delighted to hear I'd tried it over 30 years ago and had only given it up owing to cost, SHE SENT ME ONE OF THE VINTAGE CANVAS'! (a floral one, not her cuppa, she insists).

And so I had to find a way to afford the yarn to complete the thing, and a latch hook tool, and of course this led ME to vintage and WOW, have I become obsessed with latch hook rug making! I haunt eBayUK where job lots of vintage latch hook supplies yield the most amazing treasures - one of my first wins included what has turned out to be an 82 year old un-worked blank canvas and Art Deco chart! I'll be starting that tomorrow now I've managed to get the canvas to a clean condition for working (the rinse water ran brown until after 12 hand-wash woollens cycles). The canvas and chart were sold as a companion set to a larger area rug kit and how that set managed to stay together unbagged for 82 years is as much a puzzlement to me as my wonderings regarding why the original owner didn't make it. The set dates to 1936 - was it a gift not to her taste but unable to 'gifted-on' owing the identity of the giver? Did she mean to work it 'eventually' but WWII and rationing got in the way and eventually the set worked its way to the very back of her rug making priority queue once rug yarn was no longer rationed (sometime in the late 40s - early 50s)? Things to ponder as I work this canvas and chart - an acorn and oak leaf motif.

Posted please find the vintage floral canvas (completed but yet unbound), and an in-progress snap of another vintage piece I found on eBay (I'm calling that one a William Morris-Macintosh Rennie sort of thing) now finished and being bound for use not as a cushion front as the manufacturer intended, but as a small rug to be used by us as a shower room mat.

Oh dear. I think I may have created a bit of a monster. My husband has gone from moaning about my love of kitchen gadgets to a nearly full-on love of kitchen gadgets (see below for the story of how he went from hater to lover). So much so he's brought home gadgets he finds on his infrequent forays 'down the shops' - the electric kettle I had to buy a jug and funnel to fill as the handle is smack in the middle of the filler opening; the TWO pressure cookers I will likely never use and have no idea who I can palm these space wasters off to, the...

Bit of backstory for new readers (or the forgetful ones:) - we're both 'older' and married in our mid-fifties. I brought two adult children and several grandchildren to the marriage, and he brought life-long bachelor habits. His house (I moved country from the USA to the UK) was a right mess, I'll spare you the frankly horrific details by simply saying it took two years to really sort the fish camp feel of the place to one closer to a home feel.

Setting up a new home (or bringing a current one to an appropriate standard) is not easy with a man who lived on his own for over 30 years thinking himself perfectly content but in reality was nutritionally and emotionally deficient from living in what can only be described as a fish camp (search it if you don't know what a fish camp is, or take my word for it a fish camp is no fit place for any long-term habitation). His constant refrain for the first several years when out and about browsing shops was 'We don't need that!'. But, well, yes, we did.

Btw, the refrain was used and heard no matter which bank account was dipped into, mine or his or the housekeeping one. Honestly, I do love the man, but he did make that love difficult when he moaned as much about purchases I made for our home from my own money as he did regarding purchases made from the joint one.

Over the years we came to an agreement - for our anniversary gifts we would buy things for the house - an agreement cemented by the purchase of a heavy duty non-stick fry pan in our first year. Being me, this agreement quickly morphed to him letting me choose Christmas and birthday gifts in the same fashion - I've always been that rare and bizarre oddity, the surprise gift of bulk kitchen or bathroom roll is of far more interest to me than flowers or the supermarket small plant that promptly dies within a week.

But BLIMEY did the man moan when I'd say - '(insert upcoming day whereon one traditionally receives gifts) is coming and this year I'd like (insert hoped for/much needed item or gadget).' Oh ffs, the moaning could be heard three streets over! 'You'll never use it' was frequently heard. He complained about the new paring and other kitchen knives, he complained new crockery, and the full set of cutlery (I'm sorry, but two spoons, two forks, and two butter knives is not 'enough' cutlery!), he bitterly complained about the set of casserole dishes, about the bed sheets; he complained about the bath towels, he complained about...well, he complained about everything I proposed adding to our household goods (that is until he used the items and discovered how nice it is to have these basic essentials - but still moaned when I'd buy something...). It got to the point I would just buy something and put it at the back of the pantry or linens cupboard. And when he'd finally see me using it (mini-food processor, hand mixer, decent toaster, baking tray, bedding...), would ask where that came from and I could honestly say 'We've had this for yonks, don't you remember?!' which of course would lower the moaning volume. Slightly.

He's STILL moaning about the slow cooker, btw.

But. January 2017 I forced him to 'give' me a ginormous electric skillet. 'You'll never use it' was repeated so often during the two weeks of constant discussion (seriously, two full weeks of discussion regarding the under £20 purchase of an electric fry pan, ffs!) I heard it in my sleep.

But buy it I did - a 42cm one with a glass lid and as soon as it arrived it went straight to work both on a properly cooked huge batch of Southern Fried Chicken (and later, curries, and paella, and full Scottish breakfasts, and...) - he simply couldn't believe, he says often, I didn't buy one of those things sooner.

He then did a serious month of observation in the kitchen (grrrrrr!) and suddenly realised just how fab it is to make one's own apple-sauce (with the mini-food processor, quick, cheap, and SO easy!), and how delicious the little biscuits are from the hand-gun cookie press, and wowsa how great is it we have a tarts-mince pie tin (did he really think all these years I was buying those things?! Well, yes, he did, apparently!), and the mini-rolls and banana loaves, and...and he finally admitted that electric can opener (my first 'unauthorised' kitchen gadget purchase he disdained until his ancient hand opener failed to successfully cope with those icky Fray Bentos pies he likes so well as they remind him of his uni days) is actually one of the best kitchen gadgets EVER since the electric toaster.

By this past Christmas run-up he had become so enthralled by kitchen gadgets now he badgered ME to 'choose' a 12L halogen oven for my gift.

Heh.

I really wanted/needed a 30cm electric skillet for smaller meals - I absolutely love the 42cm one for big meals but NEED the 30cm one for smaller meals.

Every time I'd try to steer him towards my real choice he'd steer me right back to the halogen oven. Nothing could sway him, not even my usually effective 'The accessories will really bump the cost up and you HAVE to have to the accessories to use the thing!'.

It was ordered (as were the required but after-market accessories including cooking books - seriously, why do these things not come as a bundle with everything needed to dive right in, I really-really-really want an answer to this!). It was duly unboxed and washed and prepped and I studied those (five in all, bl--dy hell!) cooking books as though revising for a medical degree or something.

And a storage spot in my 'real estate challenged' kitchen was finally discovered for it. Luckily, that storage spot is conveniently placed behind the free-standing radiator and I don't have to see/think about that kitchen real estate gobbling useless piece of...I still haven't 'tried' it out and have no intention of ever doing so. I'll keep it (along with the TWO pressure cookers I'll also never use that haven't even been unboxed because really, pressure cookers are overrated in my opinion - dangerous, and pointless, as, after learning about them, I know a pressure cooker just is not a kitchen gadget I'll ever want or need to use).

So. A few days ago he came home from picking up a few things from the local ironmonger. As he was unpacking his bags of caulk guns and tubes, etc, he 'casually' dropped in the news the ironmonger has expanded his offerings and has a British made rice cooker-steamer gadget on offer.

I'm of two minds on this. At first I think, yes, I've long thought a rice cooker might be a good idea. On second I think, after seven years in the UK I've finally managed to make an acceptable rice portion in the microwave - is he now trying to tell me my rice is too sticky? Erm, which it is, and I do miss fluffy rice...