The (surprisingly tasty!) home-baked loaf which proves it’s never too late to try something new

IT was a Sunday and I had people staying for the weekend – my lifelong friend Maureen, and her husband Brian. Having just turned 60, both of them are still supremely fit – Maureen is a professional golfer and Brian is a long-distance cycling fanatic – so I knew that the cliff walk from Greystones to Bray and back again wouldn’t take a fizz out of them. So off we set, chatting non-stop all the way there and all the way back.

Not only are the two of them very keen on exercise, they are also very healthy eaters. And so we got talking about cooking. Now, they know me well, so they are aware of the fact that I’m not much of a cook. As a result, I eat very simply and, therefore, actually quite healthily.

‘What about baking?’, Maureen asked. ‘Baking’s a doddle.’

And that was when I confessed that I had never in my life baked anything. And I mean never. Not a cake, or a scone, or a loaf, or a bun. None of them. Ever.

Oh, I’d ‘helped’ my mother when I was a child, stirring up things for her and tossing in her weighed-out raisins or sultanas or coffee essence or whatever.

But that was only because I knew that when all was done and dusted I’d get to run my fingers around the remains of the mix still clinging to the bowl before licking them spotlessly clean.

Patience

But actually buying ingredients, weighing them out, and, God forbid, having the patience to consult and follow a recipe? No, I’d never done that.

Which was why Maureen decided that it was time I did. Even at this stage in my life.

I resisted, of course, but my protestations were futile. I was going to bake a loaf of bread that very afternoon after we had returned from our jaunt to Bray and back.

Needless to say I didn’t have a loaf tin in my possession, or any of the necessary ingredients, so I was frog-marched to the nearest supermarket complete with my shopping list.

And so it was that, just a few weeks ago, I baked for the first time in my life. A loaf of bread. Using yoghurt and oats and egg and bicarbonate of soda and dried apricots and dates and pumpkin seeds and chopped walnuts. All mixed together and then spread evenly into the loaf tin. And then into the oven for just over an hour at 185C. And do you know what? It was absolutely delicious.

But the fact that it was delicious was simply a bonus. It was the doing of it that was important. The tackling of a task that I had never done before, a task that I had always imagined would simply be beyond me.

I had embraced something new and I can’t begin to tell you the absolute kick that that gave me. And the feeling of achievement – yes, even from just baking a simple loaf of bread.

It’s so easy to shut ourselves off to things as we grow older, to imagine that if something was worth doing, if it was something that held any interest for us, then surely we would have done it by now. Yet that’s not necessarily the case.

As we build a life for ourselves when we are young we tend to focus on all the essentials – building a career and building a family. When it comes to the addons, it’s only natural that we concentrate on things that instantly appeal to us, things we know that we have a chance of being good at.

As a result we generally avoid other aspects of life that could be more challenging, vowing to tackle them when we have more time. And before we know it, 30 or 40 years have passed.

Painful

Perhaps it’s because I have been a widow now for three-and-a-half years; being alone certainly concentrates the mind. Continuing to pursue activities that I loved doing when I was part of a couple is often simply too painful.

I still walk a great deal, but that was always a solo activity. (To get pleasure from climbing out of bed at 7am to walk a 45/50-minute circuit from the house, and then back to the house, was something that was beyond my husband’s comprehension. And why, he used to ask, would you want to trek along the often muddy path from Greystones to Bray when the Dart would whisk you there in 15 minutes?)

Taking on something new, learning a new skill, can be so invigorating. Nor does it necessarily need to be a completely new activity.

When I was 13 I had one of those Raleigh Chopper bikes. It was bright orange in colour and for a short time, until there were more of them in circulation, I was the envy of my friends. I rode my Chopper everywhere and then, a few years later, I threw it aside and, apart from a short cycling holiday in Wicklow when I was in my early twenties, I never rode a bicycle again.

Until a few months ago. Yes, I am now the proud owner of one of those trendy looking ‘girlie’ bikes. Blue-green in colour (matt finish, of course) it has a leather seat, a clatter of gears, and a lovely basket on the front.

Freedom

I didn’t take to it like a duck to water. If truth be told, I was nervous at first. On my initial outing I sallied forth at 7.30am on a Saturday, knowing that there would be fewer cars on the road. I even spent my first ten minutes cycling around the empty Lidl car park near where I live – just to get more confidence.

But I will never forget the second time I took my bike out, cycling on a Sunday morning from my apartment, down through Greystones and on out to the beach. It was a beautiful morning and I felt a kind of freedom, a lightness of being, that I hadn’t experienced for a very long time.

Again, as with baking the loaf, this was a simple task that I set myself. Learn to ride a bicycle again. And I did. And that sense of embracing something new is so uplifting.

I’m on a bit of a roll now. I don’t do New Year resolutions, but I am seriously considering another new lifestyle change for 2019.

Again, it’s a return to an old, long-leftbehind activity, and one I haven’t embraced since my schooldays. I’ve been thinking about it for a while but, over Christmas, listening to all those carols, particularly Once In Royal David’s City (I sang the opening verse in the annual carol service during my last few years in school) I determined that this year, I will join a choir.

It’s never too late to try something new. This time last year I had no idea that I would be baking bread and riding a bike again. Who knows what this year will bring?