I have the exciting chore of cleaning the oven this afternoon. Lately, procrastination has been the new ‘doing stuff’ in the mindset of G Strachan esq, resulting in my ‘To Do’ list becoming a ‘Avoid like the plague’ list.

This morning, though, after weeks of avoiding the task with lame excuses, I’ve come to the conclusion the task cannot be ignored any longer.

My excuses for avoiding the task get weaker by the day. Initially, it was not done due to decent excuses, like taking Karen to hospital, higher priority chores, collecting for MacMillan Cancer Support or gardening for my dad.

Recently, though, my avoidance tactics have become more and more desperate. Culminating last Friday, when I ridiculously tried to convince myself not to undertake this laborious chore as I have a nut allergy, and there is bound to have been something cooked or baked in it with a nut content.

This was a rubbish and desperate attempt to evade the hard work of removing oven grease and grime. For one, I haven’t got a chuffing nut allergy! Secondly, even if I had it is only dangerous if I ingested food with nuts, not through some secondary grease fume related incident.

Anyway, my delaying tactics have to stop. Meaning part of my afternoon today will be spent with a bowl of boiling water and some soda crystals, while vigorously scrubbing grime from the oven base and trays, listening to 1980’s tunes on the radio.

Of course there is always the option of getting the oven cleaned by a professional, as I did a couple of years back. However after that experience, when the bloke turned up to undertake the task in fancy dress, I vowed never to go down that route again.

There is something quite disturbing about watching your oven being made pristine by someone dressed as Scooby Doo!…… Additionally, I wasn’t best pleased that during the clean a box of Scooby snacks disappeared from my kitchen cupboard.

So there will be no ‘meddling kids’ scouring the fan oven, that honour goes to yours truly. A northern Englishman, erratic of mind, random of thought and fancy dress free.

If truth be told, I’ve not worn fancy dress attire very often in my half century upon this mortal coil. I once had to dress as a penguin with some other managers at work. Our mission (should we  choose to accept it…. which I reluctantly did) was to walk around the vast open plan building in penguin suits, flapping our wings and making penguin noises.

As we unconvincingly waddled around various departments, I’m not certain the sounds emanating from our mouths were those of a penguin. It seemed more a pained noise to me.

“Not dissimilar to the sound of a rhino being circumcised!” was how one wag in the Credit Review department described it……  Unless they were David Attenborough’s nephew, I’m not sure how they knew it sounded like a rhino having a delicate part of its anatomy removed as they’ve never been out of West Yorkshire. 

I don’t recall what the reason behind the works theme day, but it was all harmless fun and I got a free fish lunch out of it, so the exercise wasn’t a bad one……. Saying that, though, the bloke in the IT department dressed as a rhino didn’t look overly happy as he gingerly shuffled past us on the walkway.

Right, enough of this nonsense, it’s time to don an old set of clothes (yes, I do have older clothes than this, you cheeky get!) and make a start on cleansing the thermally insulated cooking chamber in my kitchen.

I’ve just advised my wee spouse of my afternoon plans, to which she responded “It’s a good job you haven’t got a nut allergy. I made a snickers cake in there last week!”