The Microwave

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When asked about the glorious ordeal of travelling to Corfu and being subjected to nine weeks of paradise, I am never asked about the subtleties of the adventure I embark on. Common questions include 'What's it like working with Keeley Hawes?' or 'How do you keep up with your schoolwork?' The question that is never proposed is 'Why does your tutor ask for a microwave to be transported by lorry to the apartment complex that you stay in?'

This microwave, bought during the filming of series one in Corfu Town, the
capital of this magical island, is rather famous within The Durrells crew. For
the past two seasons, Katherine Hook, my tutor, drove it in it's box to the
Bristol Film & Television Services Depo. She set it off on the Make-up truck,
watching it begin its journey like a proud mother watching her son go on his
first school trip.

You could say that after nearly two thousand miles on the road, and a year being
stored alongside a ramshackle Windows laptop with a thickness comparable to that
of a brick, that the microwave was happy to return to it's birthplace. However,
if I was the microwave I would dread it quite suicidally. After arriving on the
truck, it is manhandled perilously to a people carrier, later being transported
to the apartment complex, most commonly by Akis Papopolous. Akis is a sweet and eager
man with an exquisite talent to balance the Eiffel Tower on his plate, among others.

After being thrown in the boot of the Mercedes, the microwave has to endure the mentally torturous ordeal of listening to the conversations that occur between Katherine and my dad. These often contain various degrees of concern about the volume of schoolwork I would have to endure, or fretting about a defector.

Finally, the microwave is removed from the boot of the people carrier in a sweltering but manageable thirty one degrees temperature. It is hobbled back up the stairs to number 32 and placed un-gracefully on the table.

After it's arrival, the microwave is removed from it's box and witnesses the sight that it has seen, I imagine, many times. The smoke and mould stained ceiling of the tired apartment, curtains stained with fabric cleanser on behalf of our beloved cleaner, Maria,   and a comfy but damp bed just around the corner. The microwave is placed on the kitchen work surface, a collection of random floor tiles which bare no resemblance to one another haphazardly cemented together on top of an elevated surface.

After a convenient adapter has been found, the microwave is plugged in. It's wires and program censors are immediately revitalised. It jumps to life
with a beep, its various lights and censors all simultaneously flash with the
upmost relief. The microwave does not know, however, that its life from that
point on will be rather plain...

The microwave is not used for adventurous curries or deserts. It lives of a
basic diet, predominantly the plainest, thickest porridge that I, myself, have
ever witnessed. The microwave also feeds greedily off various states of egg and
a gooey combination of broccoli, potatoes and chicken. It also comes in handy
when one's cup of tea has cooled to a temperature below the satisfactory height. As the
tea whirs around on the dish, the microwaves piercing its surface, the oat milk
it contains rises to the surface and leaves a skin one must remove.

This then, is the repetitive cycle of the spare Hook microwave. After filming is
complete, the microwave is stored back in its box and transported by truck back
to the UK, later being placed in the attic once again. No one knows how long
this cycle will last, but we do no one thing: The microwave will be bloody glad
to see those Corfiot porridge oats yet again.

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⏰ Last updated: Aug 23, 2017 ⏰

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