Baking in the Night

I have a routine. Often, for the first hour or two of the day I sit in the lounge. Sometimes its pretty early, today I had a marmalade cake in the oven by 04:20. I make a cuppa and sometimes have an early breakfast. I balance my cup of tea on the arm of the sofa and quietly indulge in a bit of soft news and look at social media. Actually today I've been watching Rick Stein's Cornwall and writing this of course.

https://everydaycooks.co.uk/marmalade-loaf-cake/

Why awake so early? I dunno. Things effect my mood and my mood sometimes impacts everything.

Yesterday, for instance, I needed to write an email to Dr Angela Irving. Angela is one of the oncology team that contacts me each fortnight to discuss my treatment. The purpose of the email is to get a document called a “Declaration of Serious ill Health” completed. This document is required by the Inland Revenue to enable the release of my last, very small pension pot. In this form there’s a section that reads; The term “serious ill-health” is to be interpreted strictly and narrowly. It is not intended to refer to the kind of ill-health which prevents someone from working, But to cases where life expectancy is unquestionably short i.e. less than 12 months. I think dealing with that really upset my equilibrium. I think it would upset anyone’s. It definitely seemed to determine my mood for the rest of the day. Another Greta Garbo moment.

So where’s my mind drifting today? Well actually it’s kind of spiderwebbing at the moment. Off in a myriad of directions. I need to think about what I’m going to say, what’s bubbling to the surface of my poor jangled head.

Here’s one, I’ve been doing a little job in the house. I’m changing the internal door handles from horrible brass coloured ones to shiny new polished chrome ones. Easy peasy for a chap with a high level of second fix carpentry skills, I must ask Callum, our soon to be son-in-law! Actually I’m doing them myself, I’m almost finished, only the downstairs loo to do. Anyway these handles are £9.99 a pair from a store that increasingly sells cheap Chinese junk. I don’t think it’s appropriate to say Screw and fix it. Anyway I needed three more pairs to finish the job. It’s ok I can buy them online but only arrange for click and collect. There were only three pairs available in the whole of Cornwall. I’d been watching the website for days. One pair in St Austell, one pair in Penryn and one pair in Redruth. So I bought all three and gave Tricia and I a road trip. I thought buying them online should be easy (not available for delivery). 2 hours of driving and probably about 80 miles later, what’s all this nonsense about on-line shopping?

Here's another bubbling thought.

As I’ve mentioned before, the stuff we surround ourselves with all have stories. Not stories like “we saw this in Dunelm Mill and liked it" no, proper stories like the writing bureau where I keep our laptop.

That bureau belonged to Ella Bate, a former headmistress of a Wadebridge school in the 40s. She lived in a cottage in Cardinham really close to the church. I have a vague memory of visiting with my dad when I was a boy and collecting the desk. Dad gave it to me about 30 years ago. Then there’s the Jo Downs glass panels Tricia and I have been collecting for the past 14 years (one every 3½ years, well we don’t like to spend too much).

The shed, the garage, the garden, stories, stories, stories. I’ll try to pop a little story in each post. Lets see how I get on.

And that’s just things, but there’s more, there’s you lot.

If you think I have stories about furniture imagine the stories we could all tell.

How Tricia and I had our first slow dance in Paris at The Stade de France. (The national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the eighth-largest stadium in Europe). We were at a Rolling Stones concert, with our friends Richard and Lesley. I remember Tricia saying she didn’t know any Rolling Stones music........She actually knew almost every song. In case you’re interested it was the Bridges to Babylon tour.

Or a memorable trip across to Brittany on the Pont Aven when my brother Richard, Val, his wife and our friend Tommy along with Tricia and me decided to only drink ever increasingly expensive bottles of champagne. The looks we got as we gradually “relaxed" were priceless.

See..... making memories.

In the end that’s what’s important, and cake!