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In a day filled with cooking, preparing, walking through the woods in the park and going to the theatre, I was knackered by the end of it. Partly the fault of the sunshine, partly from the usual lack of sleep, I have to say the day was, regardless of the resultant exhaustion level, wonderful.
Being Easter means making a simnel cake. I haven’t made one for a few years (other things have intruded) and I’d lost my faithful recipe I’ve been using since 2011, so I used a different one this year. It ended up being a bit denser than I prefer but Mirinda loved it.
Normally I make the little balls that supposedly represent Jesus and his band of merry men but this year I decided to go with the simple cross. (In retrospect, I wish I’d thought of using a chi ro. Maybe next year.)
Given the fact that I don’t tend to bake very often, Mirinda was very pleased about licking the bowl. In fact, I’m not sure she didn’t prefer the raw cake mix to the finished cake. Though the cake will last a bit longer. Hopefully.
My story of the simnel cake origins is here.
Before the cake, I made brunch. This was to take the place of Mirinda’s usual Holly Bush brunch. She claimed my mushrooms were better but the lack of a second egg let the side down a bit.
I also whipped up a blender full of gazpacho, ready for dinner which was the soup, garlic prawns, duck and salad and kulfi. Though dinner waited for us to return from a very late walk in the park with the girls.
We went a bit off-track and wound up getting home long after the sun had gone and we could only see by the glow of Freya’s newly washed hair. A torch is just not necessary when you have a glowing white dog.
However, the highlight of the day was going to National Theatre and seeing Jane Eyre. Digitally, I mean. Via their YouTube channel. And what a wonderful production.
It was in collaboration with the Bristol Old Vic and devised by the original cast. It was directed by the amazing Sally Cookson. This performance was streamed back in 2015.
We were treated to a brilliant performance by Madeleine Worrall as Charlotte Brontë’s eponymous ‘heroine’. Her innocence and Job like trials and tribulations were there from the start. Her mother unfolds a swaddled baby to reveal the ten year old Jane who, following the death of her parents travels to her uncle’s family. Things were bad before but they rapidly get worse.
And I thought Tim Delap was a magnificent Rochester, struggling with his duty, his truth and his love.
But, really, the entire cast was magnificent. This is a production that completely relies on the ensemble to move it from start to finish, supporting Jane and her travails.
A very special mention must go to Melanie Marshall who plays Bertha Mason (mad Mrs Rochester to us plebs). Her dialogue is limited to songs. And what an incredible voice. Her Mad About the Boy was just mesmerising.
We remained gripped for the full three hours (we had a simnel cake break at the interval). And, best of all, there was no queue for the toilet afterwards.
While lockdown is not good for most things, the freely available arts programmes from the National Theatre, Royal Opera and Ballet and the Globe almost make it bearable.
Something else bearable is our tulips. This pair of yellow beauties suddenly appeared overnight in the middle of the no-stemmed variety in the Hot Border.
And the almost silence surrounding us, broken up only by the excited tweets of birds, occasional yaps of cockerpoos and football kicking boys from the Dead House, is an absolute delight.
