The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
My Saturday
Zoom sermons, soup making and Scandi noir with the Reverend Richard Coles
5.30am I’m up very early, and let the dachshunds, Pongo [pictured], 11, and Daisy, 12, out to pee. Then I have toast with Marmite, and a strong coffee.
I shower with L’occitane Verbena; it smells of somewhere hot. I live in Northamptonshire [Coles is parish priest of St Mary the Virgin, Finedon] and drive five minutes to the station to get the train to London [he also co-presents BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live]. I say a prayer using the Common Worship Daily Prayer app.
7am I walk the empty streets between St Pancras and Broadcasting House. London has become a very different city – you half expect to see a horde of zombies. On arrival I have my temperature taken. 11.47am I get the 11.47 train home and take the dogs to Finedon Hall [a country house], where they can roll to their hearts’ content. 1pm
I roast a chicken on a Sunday, and make a stock from the carcase, which ends up in a roasted-parsnip soup on a Saturday. I’ve got a Thermomix – it’s my favourite gadget. In widowhood [Coles’s civil partner, David, died in December 2019] I’ve found that when things break, I have no idea where the instruction book is. 2pm I go out on my bike, and if I’ve got time I’ll go deeper into the countryside. 4pm In the afternoon I fine-tune a sermon – we’re doing Zoom morning prayer. I did Stand Up and Deliver [a show in which he tries stand-up comedy] because it was terrifying.
As a vicar you’re not playing for laughs, but from doing stand-up, I learnt that when delivering a sermon you should get to the point. I have a [writing] shed in the garden, which David gave me for my 50th birthday. When your partner dies, your future dies with them. I had to start gradually getting it moving again.
The Madness of Grief [his upcoming memoir] is a book written in the eye of the storm.
7pm I have a chicken tikka masala and tarka dal takeaway from a wonderful restaurant called Kohinoor, and feed the dogs bespoke kibble. I light a fire and we sit in the sitting room. I’m fond of Scandi noir and just finished BBC Two’s The Investigation.
10pm Ipoura Macallan whisky and we go up to bed. I change into a flannel herringbone nightshirt from British Boxers, put on some Joni Mitchell, then it’s lights out.
(Stand 4)
Up and Deliver concludes on Thursday at 9pm on Channel