When YoungLochinvar were nought but a nipper, our fridge stopped working.  We ordered a replacement but the infant YL was distraught.  “I liked the old fridge,” he wailed.  In vain we explained that we also liked the old fridge in every respect apart from its inability to keep things cold.  YL reproached us for our failure to keep faith with the white goods.  He always did have an advanced vocabulary.  Thus started Old Fridge Syndrome.  More than a quarter of a century later it would be, of course, inappropriate and embarrassing of us to remind YoungLochinvar of O.F.S. every time he faces a major life change.  So, naturally, we do.  What else are parents for?

There’s no chance, of course, that YoungLochinvar inherited the O.F.S. gene from me.  Nay, nay and thrice nay: it must have been from ActorLaddie, the stage being a profession known for its temerity.  I live on the edge, me:  Ranulph Fiennes would find my life style too adventurous.  I change my job at least once every twenty years and relish in extreme planning.  I live at least five minutes from most of my family and a whole ten minutes from my brother.  I have an exotic and interesting neurological condition – purely out of choice, naturally – just to give a bit of excitement to the transportation of hot drinks.  Moreover – and here’s the really adventurous bit – I might be on the point of moving to a bungalow a full two streets away from where we are now.

We changed estate agents at the beginning of this week and today we had an offer on the house.  We’re still in negotiation but actually moving now seems a real possibility.

As we sit in the kitchen waiting for the phone to ring, ActorLaddie and I mull over what we will take with us.  The bungalow is considerably smaller than our house and we’ll have to do some serious simplifying.  We leaving the oven but taking the washing machine.  The jury is out on the fate of the dishwasher.  The fridge and freezer, though, are both enormous.  ActorLaddie is happy to keep the fridge-freezer which is already in the bungalow and he is, after all, chief cook and bottle-washer.  I like our old fridge- it keeps things cold and everything – but don’t like to say so.  I might just give YoungLochinvar a ring.