Giorgina finally got to feed her son.

After three months my partner finally got to see her son this weekend. He lives in London and during lockdown all communications have been via phone calls or the occasional zoom session his mother managed to persuade him to join. For a long time those were the only options they had but now that lockdown easing has started it was time for them to get together again. There was an understandable reluctance to travel by train at the moment but once they’d found how easy it was to hire a car for a couple of days the visit was on. 

The planning which went into it was yet another example of just how strange the last few months have made everyday life. I watched his mother getting more excited by the day on one hand, but more concerned by the day on the other as she worried about social distancing and how difficult was it going to be not to give her son a hug as he walked through the door. Then there was his 89 year old grandmother to think of. She’s currently living with us and given her relatively frail health we’ve had to be extra cautious these last few moths to make sure she’s being shielded from any virus risks. Were we going to to eat outside, would it be indoors with every window thrown open. The worrying showed no sign of abating, but then we got to food planning and suddenly there was calm.

It was fascinating to watch. I’ve become so used to being the one thinking about food all the time that I’d probably forgotten others in the house have the urge to cook as well. There were lists everywhere as two days worth of meals and the necessary shopping expedition for supplies were planned. Tasks were allocated, Giorgina opted to cook the main meals, her choices were slow roast lamb for Saturday and salmon on Sunday. My contributions were going to be dessert & a cake. Given free range and knowing it was going to be a celebratory weekend I opted to make a Pavlova with Pimm’s roasted strawberries and a lemon, raspberry and courgette cake. The Pavlova is a recent bake I’ve been desperately looking for an excuse to do again. The cake is a new bake and the combination of the three flavours listed along with some lemon thyme in there as well was wonderful. We’ve got a couple  of slices left to enjoy this evening and I’ll share the recipe with you in my next post.

Even Giorgina’s mother found herself roped in to help. Its very rare to find her in the kitchen, but her task was to make an egg and bacon flan for her grandson to take home.

In the end the weekend was a great success and you won’t be surprised to hear that large parts of it were spent sat around the dining table. Giorgina finally got to feed her son again and he went home so well fed that something tell me it will be a lot sooner than three months when we next see him.

If you’re worried abut the social distancing we eventually opted for indoors with the windows thrown open.