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This evening, walking along the boardwalk at Thursley, we heard our first cuckoo. It was a long way off in the distance, hard to make out at first. Mirinda heard it and stopped, metaphorically cupped her ear and strained. We then both heard the distinct yet distant cuckoo.
Our walk at Thursley had not started well. We were confronted by a line of blue police tape strung up across the entrance to the car park. We were also confronted by a spotty youth and (I assume) his sister who objected when I lifted the tape for Max to drive under.
He thought it was okay for someone to bar people from walking on common land. We set him right about the law and he pedalled away to whatever communist cell he calls home.
We didn’t let this callow youth spoil our walk which was, quite simply, enchanting.
In fact, the entire day had been enchanting. Given it was Mirinda’s birthday made it all but essential, after all.
She started it by consuming the contents of the mixing bowl which remained after putting her birthday cake in the oven. Given it was her day I left more than I normally would. It was a strange breakfast thoroughly enjoyed.
As Mirinda said, there’s a phrase in the lo-carb community about not eating the white stuff. It’s things like rice, flour, potato, cake mix, etc that tend to contain the most carbs. Today, being a celebration day, meant it was also a National Carb Day.
She had chosen her cake from an Australian baking book that mum bought me years ago: Alice in Bakingland. I told Mirinda she could pick anything and I’d make it. She went for, what was appropriately called, White Cake.
The White Cake is, obviously, white. It is two cakes with jam and cream in between and a mile of frosting covering everything like snow in a Canadian winter. The kind when you lose your car for six months. Frosting so deep that it creates a geological layer.
The cake was simple enough. The frosting, on the other hand, took an hour to make and made me realise just how handy a standing mixer can be for this kind of job rather than my handy but inadequate electric hand mixer. I do wonder how people make frosting with a balloon whisk. Probably, they don’t.
I’m sure a true connoisseur of frosting would see problems with it but, to my taste, it was not as rich as I thought it was going to be. It was also the right amount of solid.
Eating it proved an ordeal we managed to endure.
But this wasn’t the only carb-ful meal of the day. For an early lunch we had Pannekoek.
Originally we were to have celebrated Mirinda’s birthday in a restaurant in Amsterdam at the end of our tulip laden Dutch holiday. Obviously lockdown prevented this. Mirinda said she wanted Dutch Pancakes for lunch to go some way to making things a bit better. I found a recipe and made up a couple of stacks.
I have to say that they were delicious. Savoury slices of carb-aliciousness.
The yellow bits are slices of egg yolk, the brown bits are slices of bacon and the top has melted cheese on it. They were further enhanced with some agave syrup dribbled on the top but that’s the kind of cross-cultural appropriators we are.
While lunch was pretty good, it didn’t compare with dinner.
Mirinda was allowed to choose anything. She surprised me with her choice. She wanted crumbed cutlets with gravy. I told the woman on the check-out at Waitrose that this is what she’d chosen and she was shocked as well.
Not that I’d ever made crumbed cutlets before.
According to Mirinda they were perfect. Cooking-wise, the day had proven to be a major success.
And entertainment-wise as well.
Given it was her birthday, Mirinda decided we were going to watch the Royal Ballet’s interpretation of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I figured I’d just sleep through it but, I didn’t. It was amazing.
Now, I’m not a big ballet fan. I’m the first to admit that it generally leaves me pretty cold. Well, once I get over the fact that people can stand on their toes for long periods of the day. I grow tired of the traditional ballet where the choreography is fixed in cement so, essentially, there’s no interpretation beyond the very first version. And don’t start me on The Nutcracker.
However, what I do like is surrealism, expressionism, tragically edgy and unexplained plots. And Metamorphosis, adapted by Arthur Pita, had it all. As well as one amazing dancer.
Edward Watson as Gregor Samsa and then the insect, does a fine line in contortions. He also has fingers for toes. As the insect of Kafka’s tale Watson was 100% believable. His movement was mesmerizing. Once seen, his performance is not easily forgotten.
The rest of the cast were, obviously, brilliant. It was the Royal Ballet after all. Laura Day as Grete was outstanding as the younger sister. Nina Goldman as Mrs Samsa and Neil Reynolds as Mr Samsa were also superb. As was the rest of the cast.
An amazing performance by the composer and ‘band’ Frank Moon gave the production the atmosphere it needed. He never stopped. A one man band indeed.
Bettina Carpi, Amir Giles, Greig Cooke, perfectly completed the cast, playing various roles.
It was an amazing hour and a half.
It was, from start to finish, a perfect birthday. Though I might think again before making three feet of frosting for a cupcake.
