By A Hair

It was cold when I wandered into the kitchen at 7:15 this morning. Not as cold as a couple of mornings over the past weeks, where we had the frost overnight but still a cold that would clearly challenge our fridge.

Yesterday mum arrived from Canada. Anna and I picked her up from Heathrow and braved traffic on the M4 until cutting cross-country and through Henley towards Caversham(-on-Thames). We stopped for a quick walk about the town, showing off the lovely old buildings as if they somehow belonged to us. We had delicious, but over-priced mochachino at the Café Nero and a nice chat with mum about settling in England and what the family was up to in Vancouver.

When we got back to our flat in Caversham, mum was only slightly taken aback by its sparsity and frigid temperatures. She opted to have a nap on our bed rather than the pitiful little futon we had managed to borrow for her visit. While mum had a nap, so should have Anna. But it wasn't on. So, Anna joined me in a quick jaunt down to the high street to pick up a thermometer. I had tried to pick up a thermometer at the Tesco and the Waitrose, the local pound store (akin to a dollar store at home) and a hardware store in Henley. The supermarkets both showed me a thermometer to read ones' temperature with while the pound store had somehow managed to sell out of them. I guess others are having similar questions about their houses with the onset of autumn. The store in Henley had them, but they were horrible little things that they were charging 5 quid for. I simply couldn't justify $12 on a thermometer. Luckily, the 'everything' store on the corner (where we buy birdseed) had them for a couple of quid. It's even made in Britain. But it is a cheap thermometer, so I can't guarantee the accurateness of the readings it gave: but I am assuming it was consistent, so the relative temperature of the fridge and the kitchen should be soundly measured.

Getting back to the plot: I walk into the kitchen and it is cold enough to see your breath, but I don't believe it was the coldest it has been. Still, our little experiment wasn't about the coldest the kitchen ever got, merely that we would measure the temperature on the morning of Friday, November 10, 2006. So, the temperature in our kitchen? 8 degrees Celsius (or, if you prefer, about 46/47 Fahrenheit).

Our fridge? Well, in this instance, the seemingly obvious answer was the correct one. But, just how close was our fridge in managing to be the colder of the two?According to our cheap-o thermometer from the everthing store, it was 7.5 degrees Celsius (about 45/46 Fahrenheit).

Well done to Shivani and Jacqui! Jaq, you've won yourself a British chocolate bar on the draw. What can we get for you? Shiv, you may bask in the satisfaction of getting it right (though in the hearts of everyone who was thinking, "Gaww, it has got to be the fridge that is colder, no matter what Ben thinks!", I am betting you were not thinking the difference would be half a degree)... and, Shiv, when you visit us: I'm sure we'll have chocolate on hand! ;-)

As a side note, after cooking a meal using the gas stove and cookers, the temperature shot up to nearly 13 degrees Celsius. Though still a little cold, persepctive (let me assure you) is everything and it felt quite nice...