The high life in lockdown: ‘You put your feet up while I serve the meat up’
THE roses are blooming. Lovely yellow roses – no scent but oodles of style. Each one a smudge of delicate colour against a backdrop of glossy dark foliage. The swallows are courting. They swoop and they swirl. They dive and they dance – carving extravagant patterns through the blissful evening air. Hermione all but dislocates her neck trying to follow the jerky, joyous, flight-path of one pair of the birds as they stage their exhilarating display.
Then she gives up her effort with a smile and sips calmly from her glass of palest chilled Sauvignon as she hones her appetite for imminent dinner. And she sighs. Not the sigh of someone contemplating the woes of a troubled world. Hers is a sigh of boundless contentment. She ticks off reason after reason to feel at peace – the cooing of the pigeons, the cat curled purring peaceably on her lap, the freshly started novel at her side. And there’s more. The red sky in the west with its promise of good things on the morrow. Pleasure at the prospect of summer dining out of doors. Having a husband willing to cook this evening’s feast… ‘Feckit. Where’s the sodding corkscrew?’
‘Janey Mac. What’s that burning smell?’
‘Ow. For flip’s sake. Who put that there?’
Actually, it was I who put that there, just a few seconds ago, and I should have known better than trying to move it now without donning an oven glove. This lockdown business should be a time to re-charge the batteries and relax but, frankly, being confined to home is proving quite stressful.
The outlook appeared good at the start of the stay-at-home regime with the discovery of a bridge app for the lap-top. This cunning software offered the prospect of playing cards on-line 24 hours a day for as many days as the virus continues stalking the world beyond the wrought iron gates of Medders Manor.
However, Hermione – who continues commuting to work responded by drawing up a stern programme of works clearly calculated to ensure that time available for bridge is at a minimum. So I have been in my painting clothes for much of the pandemic, giving a fresh lick of emulsion to endless walls or touching up the creosote on an infinity of fencing. All the hard labour is in addition to the routine responsibility of keeping the weeds at bay from the Side Garden and of mowing the lawn.
And then I took a vagary and volunteered to serve up tonight’s romantic meal for two, banning my sweet from the kitchen while I rustled up a casserole as centrepiece of the three-course special. The time had come to show the chef that her underling was capable of more than an omelette or a fry up, especially given all the hours of a lockdown day in which to make the preparations. I announced over breakfast that tonight I would try my hand at chicken goujons with garlic dressing, followed by beef and shallots in red wine sauce with prunes and custard for dessert.
‘You put your feet up while I serve the meat up,’ I counselled. ‘You flake out, I’ll bake out,’ warming to the theme. ‘You have a seat and I’ll take the heat.’ ‘We dine at eight, so don’t be late.’
Hermione normally ignores such requests, whether couched in rhyme or in the plainest of prose, and marches up to the cooker regardless to put the stamp of her culinary authority on proceedings. But this evening she has taken me at my word, lolling on the patio and savouring something served nicely chilled.
She remains there as the time drifts close to nine when eventually I emerge bearing starters. I whip a cloth off the tray to reveal a couple of very hard boiled eggs: ‘The goujon recipe looked a little complicated… Here’s the jar. Help yourself to mayonnaise.’
She raises one of her elegant eyebrows but passes no remark. Then she enquires about the beef.
‘I rather thought it would be better to drink the red wine, dearest, so we are having mince-balls in baked beans.’
‘And the prunes, Medders?’
‘Prunes, entirely as promised, though I broke the tin-opener and had to use an axe. And I have substituted yogurt since we were out of custard. We cordon bleu types have to be able to think on our feet, don’t you think?’