Simply Mal fortuna...?

"Older people waste less food because they are twice as likely as younger generations to ignore best before and use by dates" according to recent research. Yes and? Why do we need surveys like this when any of us could have told them the answer. Saving them both bother and expense.

However, this weekend I defied the findings of research. I hurled out tins and items from my larder cupboard that were years, yes years, within the use by date. How could this be? Well, if you've got a moment, I'll tell you.

We had people to stay over the weekend. Renovation not concluded upstairs, but thankfully a very lovely bathroom, all but finished downstairs. The under stairs cupboard in the process has received a makeover: tiled and painted, after having been left in its raw state since we moved in. It was finished by Friday evening; guests due Saturday lunch time. Entire contents of cupboard strewn, stacked and spread across most of the downstairs.
Dearest stepped over detritus (did he even see it?) with yoga bag (and now own yoga mat, upon my insistence) and said he would be back in good time. I wouldn't describe this as the merest whiff of domestic turmoil, because it was an amber alert in fairness. Neither would I with any confidence, believe that his assistance which would have commenced with the most chilling of all questions:"What would you like me to do?" would have lasted any significant length of time before he decided to disappear to the office. So I was resigned to tackling this Herculean task of restoring order by myself.
I was doing quite well, when I happened to open the larder cupboard in the kitchen and was met with the rankest of smells. Putrefying fish smell. Gross most gross. I picked up a tin of tuna with pincer-like handhold and squinted at the details through the oily bracken-coloured label. Good for another couple of years? Dear Lord. Not on your Nelly. Out it went. Followed by another couple of tins of tomatoes that had also been mysteriously sullied. Satisfied I had got rid of the offenders, I closed the cupboard door. The smell continued to hang in the air.
Right. I took every item out of the cupboard and wiped it down with an anti-bacterial cloth. Brutally expelled ANYTHING that had an expired date, cleansed the wire baskets and inhaled. Not deeply. No need, because the smell lingered with, by now, embarrassing intensity.
I used to think that losing your glasses, or your keys, or your vital info for your tax return could lead you to the brink of insanity.
I would like to add to that list: a repugnant odour that cannot be expunged and a husband returning home ( festooned with purchases from Daunts in Marylebone), fifteen minutes after his guests have arrived from Southport.
I am so well-mannered. I didn't create an even bigger stink. I saved that for later.