Do I have to persist with making this bloody soup?

[AnalyseThis]

Currently visiting a very elderly lady who asked me to make some soup for the weekend, specifically cream of vegetable. Key ingredients seem to be there and I love cooking.

Difficulties quickly arose with any creaming / mashing / pulverising since there turns out to be no blender, no grater and no masher. Elderly friend definitely did not want me to go out and buy any of these for her since she's sure she used to own them and they might turn up some day...

So, I decided I would just boil the vegetable ingredients until they fell apart of their own accord.

I have then been repeatedly foiled by elderly friend creeping in and turning the heat down to the lowest level whenever I leave the room. In order to reassure her that I will not burn down the house, and to keep the temperature up, I am now sitting in the kitchen and watching a bubbling pan.

I also agreed to use some "special" vegetable stock cubes in the cupboard and the soup pan now smells disgusting.

It normally takes 30-40 mins to throw something like this together and it's now been 2.5 hours.

I'm very tempted to pour the foul-smelling but not yet liquified mess down the toilet, creep out the front door and run to the little local supermarket to buy a couple of cartons of soup instead.

Can’t you buy one and pretend it showed up? If she’s old and a bit forgetful she might not notice it’s different & she’ll enjoy the soup more made the way she described

Oh, bless her. I've got an elderly neighbour of similar proclivities, you just have to roll with it occasionally. Our boiler packed up a while ago and she let me go round and use the bathroom for a bath (no shower) but stood outside the door giving me a running commentary on the odd noises the boiler was making as she had a new boiler herself and wasn't used to it. Not the most relaxing bath I've ever had, but I was very grateful all the same!

Can you nip and ask a neighbour? Our old neighbour was always popping over to borrow our blender. Except he was french and never learned the word so used to do a mime for not.

Oh God. Can you nip round various neighbours and see if anyone can lend you one of them stick blender things?

It's still bubbling and not disintegrated.

Hadn't thought of neighbours and we're in a big block of flats so there should be quite a few to choose from. I may have to do the same mime as LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD's French neighbour as I'm not in the UK. Most people speak English but blender or masher may not be in the key vocab...

Mixeur

I might've made that up...

Is there a sieve?

Already thought of a sieve earlier but it seems to have gone to the same place as everything else. I've had the step-ladder out to look in top cupboards. I bet there's a box somewhere with the lot in.

Closest neighbours not in. Turning off the pan now for further exploration...