Wasn't that fun?

I've known for quite some time that it needed to be done but if prevarication was an Olympic event, I would be almost a permanent gold medal winner.  After all, age is no barrier when it comes to excelling at that!  My problem - and it is more of a problem than a challenge - is that I can always find something else more interesting to do.  And I can usually persuade myself that that something else is more urgent as well.

As I said, I have known for some time that it needed doing, but as I have been the only one to go to the freezer for at least two months, I thought that the Old Bat hadn't noticed that the ice had become more than an inch thick in some places and that two of the three moveable baskets were no longer moveable.  And then on Friday, she suddenly asked, "Shall we defrost the freezer on Monday?"

What could I do but agree?

And so, this morning, after I had walked the dog, helped the Old Bat get up and dressed and had another cup of coffee, She Who Must Be Obeyed gave me my instructions.  This, this and this was to be put in the cool box, along with that, that and that if there was room.  The rest would be put in the insulated bags which were in the cupboard under the stairs just beyond the wine rack, and the de-icer spray she had bought was in such and such a cupboard and the plastic spatula . . .  Well, you get the idea.

I muttered under my breath about the original suggestion being that WE should defrost the freezer.  Was this, I grumbled to myself, the extent of the OB's involvement, the issuing of instruction?  Well, not quite.  When I had managed to extract those baskets from the ice - a task only slightly less arduous than freeing the Endeavour from the Antarctic ice - the OB washed them.  And dried them.  I, meanwhile, removed three tons of ice (well, it felt like it) and cleared up the stray blackberries, peas and sweetcorn from the floor of the freezer, along with three of those twisty closure thingies and several labels that had fallen off bags.  Fortunately, I was able to keep one foot on the floor as I dealt with the rubbish at the bottom.

Surprisingly, it only took a couple or three hours.  But the Old Bat's happy on two fronts: we did something together (even if it was mainly me doing something while she watched or read the paper) and we now have an ice-free freezer.

We must do it again sometime - but not for several months!