A recipe for disaster

1. Try to make kedgeree for tea for wife and parents, who have spent all afternoon slaving away in the garden chopping down evil spiky conifers.
2. Boil eggs, cook rice/fish etc, using materials prepared by outstanding sous chef/wife.
3. Place lightly steaming smoked haddock on a plate.
4. Put tight-fitting saucepan lid on the top, to keep the heat in.
5. Leave for a while, whilst you finish off cooking the rest of the rice.
6. Attempt to wrestle lid off plate, using a combination of tea towels, mallets, screwdrivers, hot water, brute force and rude words.
7. Try to ignore hysterical laughter.

Eventually, the plate saw sense and collapsed under the pressure. The kedgeree tasted fine, once we'd picked out a couple of bits of china...