Isobutane

Meet the latest addition to my flat - a fridge freezer! It is actually a gift - after having a conversation at Christmas time about how I was planning this year to finally get round to acquiring a means of storing frozen food, my mother said "Let me buy you one as an early birthday present - get one in the sales." We generally exchange bottles of Scotch on special occasions rather than large domestic appliances, but she was insistent, and here is the result.

Of course, this prompted me to have a look through Wiki on the subject of refrigeration. The results of my research? Practically nothing, I'm afraid. There's loads of stuff about it, but I couldn't understand any of it. Chemistry was never my strong point. One thing I did learn was that they've banned the inert safe refrigerants because of CFCs, and that my new frozen friend has the highly flammable isobutane running through its veins. They don't tell you this in the manual, of course. Well, actually, they do, since they mention "R600a", which is the refrigeration business' name for Isobutane.

Oh well, I wasn't planning to try and smoke it in any case.

So, I went shopping this morning, and in addition to my usual purchases bought a few other things:

Ice Cube Trays - It comes with one, but I'm planning to use a reasonable amount of the stuff, so I've now got another two. I wonder how long it'll be before I do what my mother does and just buy bags of ice cubes from the supermarket?

Bread - I'm forever throwing bread away because being on my own it doesn't always get used up fast enough. At least I used to throw it away, in the dark days before I was able to freeze it.

Peas & Sweetcorn - Peas are better out of the freezer rather than a tin, and again, I won't have any wastage. In addition, they are also essential for first aid - think of all the body parts people have had cut off, but managed to save because they could keep them fresh in a bag of peas.

Fish Fingers & Micro Chips - The above stuff looked too healthy and sensible. It's necessary to maintain a balanced diet, after all

Jaimie Oliver Chopping Board - This has nothing to do with my increased refrigeration capabilities, nor would I normally buy anything branded by a celebrity chef, but they're selling of all the "gift" products at sale prices.

Now that I've written about it, it'll probably develop a fault and blow up. Which will make for a more exciting blog post. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to relaxing this evening with a nice glass of Ouzo. On the rocks.