Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Food, Cupboards, Construction Standards, Insulation

I think I've confessed somewhere that in fact I am an imposter-poet, because in my 'real life' I am actually an Engineer.  Try as I might, every so often my interest in the physical world of science and engineering wins out over the airy-fairy poet.  Granted, I have been 'retired' for a few years, but that was because legally I couldn't work in Malaysia, no doubt because my skills in traffic and public transport and road safety were redundant in a country with one of the highest road fatality rates in the world (only surpassed by this fair country and a few similar ones).  I digress ...

Why is this cupboard always open during the summer?


This is the only cupboard in the kitchen that stores food and it is food that we use frequently, like the olive oil, worcester sauce, macadamia honey, marmite, vegemite, peanut butter and muesli.  We have a poor excuse of a pantry in the next room, off the laundry where the bulk of our dry goods is stored, but for everyday items, especially at breakfast time, it isn't convenient.  So we use this one.

It is very hot outside - most days we are in the mid forties now (I laughed when I read about the 'heatwave' in Britain),  and the kitchen is airconditioned.  Sensible, really.

This next point is a little technical (just teasing) so stay with me:  the outside walls are so poorly insulated that the insides of the cupboards get as hot as is it outside.  This implies that our cupboard doors do a better job of insulating the contents from the cool air of the kitchen than the outside walls do of insulating the contents from the heat outside.  Not brilliant.

So we keep this cupboard open.

Old tidy habits die hard and we are constantly closing the door absent-mindedly and then coming in and noticing it, and then opening it again.  Come late October we will stop leaving the door open.

x

6 comments:

Penelope said...

Here in NZ, an open cupboard looks like an invitation for the earth to quiver. Mentally I've tacked small battens across the fronts, two inches above the shelves.

Jenny Woolf said...

I'm imagining bugs flying in. Interesting what you say. You could take the door off and put it BEHIND the food, couldn't you?
Why couldn't you work legally in malaysia?

jabblog said...

I thought the same as Jenny. Two doors behind would be even better but would reduce storage space . . .

Anonymous said...

All singing from the same sheet here I see ... but you know what I thought of first of all?
Wow two shelves - this woman stacks things on her top shelf! At 4ft 10 and barely able to reach the first shelf, I'm impressed.

37paddington said...

you are a renaissance woman is what you are, an airy-fairy poet and a rock and road engineer.

i loved your write yourself a flak jacket idea, and now i know it came from both aspects of you!

Tim Jones said...

Following on from Angella's comment, there seems to be an implied dichotomy in your post between being a poet and being an engineer: do you sometimes use the language and thought processes of engineering to enrich your poetry?