Boiling Point

I have a level of anxiety, when, it comes to making jam

But thankfully, lurking on my shoulder, is a very ‘clever’ man

He who knows, exactly, what the setting point should be

If only I could emulate, his ability, instead of being, humble little me.

I’d been out to pick the brambles, and been, scratched to hell

Apparently, I could have picked some more, and hadn’t done too well

But with the ones I had collected, I promptly put them on to boil

Then given further instruction, of which, I had to toil.

Oh, my word, I was told, I should have thought of pectin

I’d thought of that, but nodded, to appease him, not to test him

The lemon juice and apples, had gone in a while ago

This woman is no idiot, but, of that, he wouldn’t know.

He hung around the kitchen door, and started up again

As you’ve surmised by now, his advice, was not my yen

Alas, he persisted, and his thermometer, he tried to proffer

I gritted my teeth, smiled, and gently, declined his generous offer

By then, for both the jam and I, our boiling point, was reached

The thoughts, within my head took hold, until my patience, had been breached.

Slowly I walked across the kitchen floor, and calmly closed the door

In his face........... as I could barely take no more

Back to the boiling pot, and the liquid I did stir

And dripped the jam from the spoon, to see the setting point occur

All sorted. Then I filled each hot and sterile jar

When I heard his dulcet tones, from the living room afar

‘Is it all done,’ he asked, ‘and has the setting point been met’?

‘Abso-bloomin-lutely,’ I replied, ‘too right it has, my pet’.

He said he’d like to try, the sticky, fruity, treat.

‘Of course, no probs’, I replied, ‘Anything for you my sweet’

Just as it was cooling, I got it on the spoon, and stopped

And poured it back, in the pan, to heat it till it plopped

I spooned up the luscious liquid and took it through to him

‘Close your eyes’, I said, ‘Open wide’...and he did, and I just popped it in.

Well, as you can imagine, he was simply, struck down dumb

It was for that sweet temptation, that he did succumb

Maybe, when you try and control a woman, there’s a lesson to be learnt

Don’t push her to her boiling point, or you might just get burnt.