We bought a fancy Dualit toaster. We used to use a mini toaster oven, but now that we have two working ovens we don’t really need to dedicate counter space to a third, and it was never quite big enough for breakfast for two, so we gave it away.

You can buy an adequate four-slice toaster for £50 or so, but I really like the Dualit ones because first, you can buy replacement elements and other spare parts in order to maintain them, and second, you can pop up the toast to see how it’s doing without interrupting the timer. However, they’re really expensive: £220 for the four-slice model. I generally prefer to buy something that will last a lifetime rather than a disposable piece of future landfill, and it’s made in the UK by hand, but still: it’s not cheap!

But then I had an idea: if they’re maintainable, maybe you can buy a second-hand one. I had a look on ebay and found a used but working one for a fraction of the price of a new one.

When it arrived, it was a bit grimy inside. I completely disassembled it and cleaned all the metal parts with oven cleaner, reassembled it, and it now looks practically brand new.

Our shutters have been manufactured and now we just have to wait for them to arrive on the slow boat from China, made slower still by the need to travel around the Cape to avoid the Red Sea. I’m not sure this globalisation thing is quite living up to the promise. It’s not as frictionless as it once was. I wonder if the decline of the Roman Empire felt like this. At least our plumbing still works.

It’s too late for this year, but the shutters should make the dog days of next summer more tolerable.

We went all the way out to Walthamstow to see the Mingei exhibition of Japanese folk art at the William Morris gallery on Thursday evening. (It’s open until late on Thursdays.) There were some beautiful pieces of work. I especially liked the recontextualised labels on the Ainu items, in which an Ainu person gave a more personal interpretation of their cultural place. It’s free, it’s good, and it’s closing in about a month.

The glass in our trifold doors spontaneously cracked. It’s only one of the triple layers, and it’s only about 10 cm from one edge, but it’s not great that it’s happened so soon after installation. I assume, based on the recent weather, that thermal expansion interacted with an existing flaw in the glass.

Fortunately it’s all still in warranty, so we’re having it replaced in a few weeks. I’m told that swapping the glass unit is a trivial job that takes only a few minutes.

The neighbourhood cats have been very noisy. I think it’s a sex thing.

This week’s links: