Only Hurley can make jam saucy!
GILLIAN ANDERSON (star of X-files and The Crown) is said to be “bemused” by the speed with which her ex, Peter Morgan (writer of The Crown), has moved in with heiress Jemima Khan. She and Khan used to be on the same party circuit and were best mates. Possibly less so now. And I imagine that Anderson doing “bemusement” involves a steely gaze before which most folk would crumble.
Friends say that Khan and Morgan are now in a “legit support bubble” which must be the explanation for him moving in his toothbrush so quickly. Nobody wants be caught out the way Professor Neil Ferguson was back in the distant days of the first lockdown. You’ll remember that the epidemiologist was discovered to be having his married lover over twice a week, in a clear breach of the rules.
These days forming a “legit support bubble” is the only way forward if you’re hoping to spend quality time with someone you fancy. Now that “asking someone up for a coffee” or “going on a date” are illegal, there really is no alternative to shacking up together at the first opportunity. Or entering a “legit support bubble” as we must call it. And they say romance is dead…
ONLY Liz Hurley would manage to use a couple of jars of marmalade as an opportunity to show us her breasts. You have to admire such ingenious multi-skilling. Breasts (via her bikini range) are her main business – with marmalade as a sideline. She’s made 47 jars and is already planning another batch. Yes, it is the marmalade season.
My husband is the marmalade maker in our family and gets quite agitated at this time of year in case he misses out on the Seville oranges which make a fleeting appearance on the supermarket shelves. And then there’s Brexit to factor in. There have already been ominous reports from Norfolk of shops not receiving the oranges at all, or running out very quickly. It’s all very worrying. Though we are a long way from Norfolk.
The appearance of alternative marmalade recipes always makes him have doubts about his preferred method. Would the addition of lime juice really make a difference he ponders?
He needs constant reassurance before he gets going with the chopping, the soaking overnight, the pulp, the muslin and all the fannying about that marmalade making involves.
And then... last year. We don’t really like to talk about last year when he left the molten marmalade in the pan for perhaps two minutes too long and the smell of burning permeated the neighbourhood. The result was a batch of black marmalade which tasted faintly of, well, soot, to be honest.
He was not, as they say, in a good place. Not only was the marmalade black but the bottom of the preserving pan resembled tarmac. “It’s ruined,” he said, throwing a wobbly and putting the pan out in the back garden.then he ordered a new one online. Or at least he tried to. But John Lewis had discontinued theirs which seemed to him like an intimation of the End of Days.
So I rescued the preserving pan from the garden where it was collecting rainwater and cleaned it quite easily, as I knew I would.
Not that he eats the marmalade of course. He has black coffee for breakfast. It is left to me to eat it along with anyone who will accept a jar or two. The grown-up children are not keen and regard Dad’s marmalade with all the enthusiasm of those receiving a Chartwells food hamper.
It’s said that marmalade sales are going up because more of us eat breakfast now as we are not going out. Meanwhile, I found a jar dated 2014 which was delicious. There may be others. When the new batch is made I shall have a lot of catching up to do. I may pose with a couple of jars and an incidental picture of my breasts on social media à la Liz Hurley.you never know.