Warming Up

I picked my son up from his first day at nursery - he’d been so excited to be going, on his way there he’d said hello to everyone he passed and told them that he was going to school. To be fair to him lockdown has been tougher on him than anyone else in this family and he’s really missed socialising and he was super excited to be going to play with other kids. I didn’t want to tell him how short-lived this might be and that we might be facing another six months of exclusion soon.

For the moment though it was a delight to see him so happy and fulfilled. I wonder how long this enthusiasm for school will last, but I hope a long time. My own never really waned. Happiest days of my life. But then I’ve had a pretty unhappy life.

He’s such a bundle of fun and mischief and friendliness. Life will kick it out of him, of course. But nice to be here to experience it so that one day I can tell him how he once was.

We came home and “we” made a bramble and apple pie with the blackberries we’d picked yesterday (though if I am honest Ernie just hindered things, whilst putting himself in danger of burning). Plus some apples I’d had to go out and buy specifically. But it still counts. It was this recipe by Raymond Blanc.

I did twice as much fruit as this recommends, but there was more crumble that it looks like there is in this picture and the proportions turned out just right for me. I haven’t been eating puddings this month (I did have another Solero today) but we basically had this instead of dinner and it was absolutely gorgeous. Maybe just because my body has been starved of sugar (comparatively), but like I say, there was a lot of fruit. So it was good for us.

As always I am just amazed by the wizard-like magic of cooking. You just need the spell book and you can do anything. On days like today I feel like giving up on the comedy (yes, nice response, very funny) and just enjoying the bounty of the countryside and the glory of domesticity. With showbiz there’s always the chance that I will be forced to do that anyway.

Utterly extraordinary and almost supernatural frame of Me1 vs Me2 snooker tonight. Watch here 

Or if you don’t want to be too scared, listen here.

I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that this is the greatest half hour of sport of all time.

It’s love audio week. So why not celebrate your unholy passion for sound by preordering my first audio book The Problem With Men here. Listen to a clip here (will be posting more on Twitter during the week) This isn’t the actual audio book though as we haven’t recorded it yet.

So if you've got a couple of Audible credits burning a hole in your computer then you know what to do.