The inner saucepan...

Even though we have a dishwasher I seem to do a lot of washing up. Not that we’ve always had a dishwasher, we’ve only had one for the last three years or so and we’ve only started using it regularly over the last few months.

For years I thought that I enjoyed doing the washing up by hand and mostly it was true. But when there’s a mountain of it, like after a full roast, I’m pleased that we’ve started using our dishwasher - despite the time it takes and the hum it makes.

Most times though I still wash up by hand. I find it almost relaxing, slipping on my marigolds so as not to burn my hands and plunging the dishes into the steaming, soapy water. The glasses are never quite as gleaming when washed by hand though, and some of our pots are a little too large for them to fit into our slim-line dishwasher.

The other day when I’d finished washing one of our largest stainless steel pans by hand I caught a glimpse of it on the drying rack. The constant heating and cooling had tempered the inner steel colouring it permanently with a rainbow of colour. It was quite beautiful.

Now I know that this might seem strange and simply a further affirmation of my - well let’s call it eccentricity shall we, but I picked up my camera knowing that there was something worth snapping inside that saucepan.

And there was. Inside that saucepan was a whole new shimmering world, an Aurora Borealis of scratched and flashing metal. It seemed as if another wholly separate universe existed inside, and I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the Starship Enterprise had flashed past as I snapped off a photograph or two.

Gaynor thought I was quite mad and perhaps I am, but just look at the results. Incredible. It’s all there if you look hard enough. Worlds inside worlds.

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps our entire universe is simply the scratches and marks inside a great big saucepan. Just think - maybe one day we’ll all be wiped away by a torrent of bolognaise sauce.