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Ice, ice, save me

Maisy and I decided to defrost the freezer. We should have done it during the electricity holiday we took last week in which we went back to Victorian times. A cable had exploded below the pavement outside our front door, maybe because it was old but probably because it was installed during the tenancy of a Labour government, and by day two we were compelled to go to the pub to watch the football because the lack of hot water and Facebook meant one of us was about to eat the other. We felt guilty for moaning, because lots of African children seem to get by quite fine without electricity, but with it gone we realised we had become quite attached to power. We needed it to keep our processed meats and diet yoghurts cold, for instance, but the temperature of our fridge matched the arbitrarily hot weather outside and we were forced to rely on a picnic from M&S. However, it gifted us an opportunity to defrost the freezer - a job on the house to-do list (also on there: save up for a hoover; buy a hoover; hoover the house properly; fix the grill). Unfortunately, in the chaos - compounded by the workmen who were tramping in and out of our front door until 2 am for two nights in a row - and what with all the needlepoint we were trying to cram into daylight hours, the freezer was forgotten about and we only got round to doing it these last few days.

I understand that the thawing of our freezer is not what most would consider traumatic - especially when viewed in comparison to the Flying Ant Attack of 2010 or the time the downstairs toilet blocked. But I think most people underestimate my reliance on my freezer. Sure, I keep my peas in there like the next man, but I stow more scared treasures in its icy bowels: my ice cube tray. It's pink, and it moulds the ice into little domes that are the perfect size, and it is the only thing that - just about - sates my thirst. I love my ice cube tray in an unnatural way. I look forward to returning home and relieving it of a frozen gem. My ice cube tray represents safety and security in the same way the Peter Rabbit bowl did when I was a child: it means I am at home and can nourish myself in peace and privacy. I don't have to embarrass myself or befuddle a waiter by requesting plain ice in a restaurant (inevitably the cubes are too big and they give me too many). I don't have to buy a drink and then painstakingly not drink the vast majority of it, and I can avoid the discomfort that ensues when I end up desperately chugging down forbidden liquid because, in the absence of available ice cubes, my mouth has become as dry as a badger's scrotum. With my ice cubes defrosted I felt panicky and vulnerable. And thirsty.

We left the freezer door open for three and a half days and everything melted, except the fucking ice that clung to the walls and like Jack Frost on acid. We chipped away at it, we broke a wooden spoon and blunted a knife, but by the end of it a good 40% of the ice remained, just to taunt us, really, in that bitchy way that frozen water can. And all the while, my poor moulds sat forlornly on the side, melted and empty. I like to creep downstairs at midnight for a hit of ice, just like Nigella, who inexplicably needs to feast on leftover cheesecake at 3 am, but without my cubes I had to have a sip of tepid water which was just not the same AT ALL. In the end, now angry with the freezer, we decided that our efforts were good enough and finally shut the door. I refilled my domes with watery joy.

It has been brilliant having my cubes back, although the course of true love never runs smooth. With the freezer now empty bar two small loaves of bread and a bag of veg that miraculously survived the thaw, my ice cubes freeze so hard and fast that they do not slip out of their moulds so easily as they once did; they have left the tops of my thumbs sore from all the pushing and prising and frozen-ess. I believe they are just playing hard to get, but I want them, I need them, and I shall put up with the pain to get them because I would rather have raw thumbs than a dry tongue. Actually, what I'd rather have is a working kidney and no fluid restriction at all; but even when the day comes that I shall be able - nay, I must - drink as much as I want, my heart shall always be warmed by the thought of my ice.

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