Champagne for Breakfast

So there we were this morning, eating breakfast (scrambled eggs on toast), reading the papers, Andy trying yet again to convince me of the value of the ramblings of 'Dr' Ben Goldacre from the Guardian's Bad Science column, when there was an ENORMOUS bang and then a general feeling of wetness, like our indoor sprinkler system had gone off.

(We don't have an indoor sprinkler system, I hasten to add - we did when we moved in, but it was soon cured by replacing the the old upstairs shower which was leaking through the ceiling).

My immediate thought was that Andy had taken a 4 pint bottle of milk from the freezer to defrost and it had burst, which would be a spectacular thing for frozen milk to do; Andy's immediate thought was the that the toaster had exploded. The odd thing was that it happened in a kind of slow motion moment.

But once the initial shock had settled, and we sniffed the air (this took about 0.74 of a second) we realised that one of Andy's recently bottled bottles of wine, resting horizontally in the wine rack on the kitchen wall about 3 feet from our heads, had shot its cork (which was resting against the wall) and propelled itself from the rack onto the floor, landing ON ITS BASE and without BREAKING, and spraying half its contents across the floor, table, papers, ceiling and me and Andy.

We had one of those stunned silence moments like you'd have if you heard the Queen swear.

'Good Lord,' we said. (Sort of).

And then we had to set about the task of a kitchen clean up involving mucho mopping and wiping, and the relocation of all the bottles of wine back into the brewing bucket to stand inside the bath in case any more of them decided to explode.

It was like Elderflower Champagne 2009 all over again.

'You know why it happened, don't you?' I said, wielding my mop.
'No,' said Andy, standing on a chair to wipe the ceiling.
'It happened because I spent all day yesterday cleaning the entire kitchen,' I said.

I don't think Andy was convinced by my clean kitchen = exploding wine theory.

But I think it is a good theory. Yesterday, I spent over 7 hours emptying all the cupboards, cleaning them out, de-cluttering (which was very satisfying) and then re-locating cupboard contents into different cupboards (which will probably prove a tad dissatisfying until we get the hang of where everything is now living.) In my mind, however, I have streamlined and organised and down-sized and freed up a whole cupboard in which Andy can store all his wine making and brewing caboodle.

Although I think he's feeling a bit nervous about brewing now, following this morning's explosion. But, of the twelve bottles of wine he filled, only one has gone kaboom so far, so perhaps it was just a frisky little rogue number having a bit of a laugh.

And then, in a bizarre act of masochism, Andy said, 'I'm just going to check my blood pressure.' I was thinking, the worst time to check one's blood pressure, surely, is after experiencing wine bottle explosion three feet from one's head, but he went to check it any way and it was a bit high.

So, not being one to pass an opportunity I thought, right, we'll go and get the paint for the hall, stairs and landing whilst his blood pressure is up because then I can't possibly do any further damage by making my hubby come on a paint shopping trip with me. So we got the paint (Box Green from the Heritage Colours range - that's what happens when you are a regular reader of Country Living magazine) - and a shelf for the bathroom.

So, the sun is shining, it is hot (but that could also be my hot flushes) and there is a stain on the kitchen ceiling where some wine landed and a teeny tiny crack in one of the floor tiles where the bottle landed. But it could have been worse. Neither of us had heart failure, and the cats didn't go mad with the kerfuffle.

And tonight we are having dinner with a friend.

Happy weekend!