Man against the elements

Yesterday I consider I made my own contribution to man’s perennial struggle against the elements when I defrosted my fridge. With my housekeeper in deepest Cornwall and my p/a Polly in Kent I was left to my own devices over the festive period. On Monday I called the appliance man to consider replacement of my fridge. He advised that only the door to the freezer compartment needed replacement but first it required defrosting. This was a task which I was going to allocate to my temporary replacement housekeeper in the New Year but to my surprise the man called again on Wednesday to say the door had arrived. So yesterday I had to defrost the fridge. He did explain the speediest way to achieve this was with a hair drier. I have to admit that in my long and not uneventful life I never recall defrosting a fridge.

I got down on all fours, hair drier in hand and got to work. After 5 minutes a small hole appeared in the ice reef, then another. Soon I was driving the ice back. After 30 minutes big blocks of ice were falling away. I felt  a sense of triumph that I, Robert Eric Septimus Tickler, had taken on the elements and won. Commerce’s gain was surely polar exploration’s loss. Would future generations in discovering my journal hail me alongside Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton as one of the giants of polar exploration?