A haircut? A pint? A fry up? A country pub? Whitebait? Tsing Tao? Salt and pepper ribs? Buying a book? New opera? Borough Market? There are so many things that we are missing right now. It is wonderful to fantasise about these marvellous things in my life. Well in the previous life. How many will still be there when we are freer? I don't know the answer to that. But I can dream.
On a cold grey May afternoon I'm seeing the hours tick by and the move inexorably on to a new working week. Monday comes too fast. Somehow the message about the changed Bank Holiday didn't register with me. Thank goodness one of my students told me it is on Friday not tomorrow.
The shoulder of pork roasts away slowly in the oven. Seasoned with sage, thyme, salt and pepper the smell is heart warming. Mozart's Great Mass plays, I'm off the phone, the paper is read and I'm just enjoying the moment.
Coming on here is a moment of self indulgent play for me. In a way it doesn't really matter how many people actually read. The number of hits exceeded 100,000 this week although I take that with a salt mine of salt as I'm still being watched more by an Italian robot that allegedly reads my stories than by real people. But those who do read and speak to me do seem to enjoy it.
Talking to Jayne on the phone yesterday she asked if I was going to write another book. I suppose in a way this is my third book. Others repeatedly ask when I will write and publish a cook book. I'm more guarded on that as so much of my cooking originates in other people's ideas from my many cook books. It is cheering people up the amount of food porn as a colleague said yesterday I put on the social media sites.
Perhaps it is time for original ideas in the kitchen. There was a time when I drank far more than I do now when I was regularly invited back to friends' houses, shown the fridge and told "cook"! My invitations these days are somewhat more sedate. I miss the days of the Chapel Street Brothel but I'm older, less reckless and find it harder to recover now.
So I suppose many of the things I miss I'm still doing but on a lesser and cheaper scale. One thing I can't get done myself is taming the wild hair. They used to say I had stoned hair back in those days. Now my monthly indulgence of the Turkish barber is no more. I think I miss that most as it is out of my hands. I can cook. I can drink. I can listen to music. I can read a book. But I won't be trying cutting my hair.
Have a good week everyone.
I Heard a Voice.
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