They say that a watched kettle never boils. That isn’t entirely true but it always seems to take an age. The same is true of waiting for things like jams and chutneys to thicken on the hob.
How do I know? Fortunately I wasn’t out of the room too long and I still got a decent yield from yesterday’s green tomato chutney but the pan took some cleaning from what had started to burn on the bottom! Whoops!