Saturday afternoon in the garden.

Saturday afternoon and I’m sat in the garden having a first attempt at alfresco writing. Things have been a bit thin on the blog front recently so I thought I’d have a bit of a catchup. I didn’t get around to any writing for a few days after my last post, then I had to get a piece together for the final session of the creative writing course I’ve been doing, and before I know it there hasn’t been anything new on here for a couple of weeks.

The course is complete and just in case my tutor or fellow students happen to read this I wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. When it became apparent all sessions were going to be Zoom based I did have my doubts about going ahead, but in the end, it’s been a huge success. Two hours of interactions and exchanging of ideas each Thursday morning has been a beacon over the last fourteen weeks and I will miss it.

At the end of the course, we all submitted pieces of work for feedback from the group. I don’t think I’ve been so nervous about something I’ve written since I was handing in homework when I was at school. Except perhaps for the time that my dad found out, I’d started blogging and asked for a link so he could have a read of it. In the end, it was a very positive experience and after a final polish and edit based on the comments I received from the group I’ll share it here as a later post. 

In other news, we had a birthday in the house last week. My partner’s son turned 30 and came home from London for a celebration. While his mum wanted to do most of the cooking for him I was allocated birthday cake duties. Given free rein, and on the understanding there would be no telling off for using too much cream, I opted for a Tiramisu cake. Three layers of light genoise sponge, each layer drizzled with strong coffee. Between these a filling of cream, mascarpone and Marsala wine, the whole thing topped with more of the same and finished with grated dark chocolate and cherries. Fabulously indulgent and if I’ve whetted anyone’s appetite with the description I’ll make sure to post the full recipe soon. Typing that has given me an idea, perhaps I’ve found a reason to make another, I could claim to be checking the recipe before I post it.

A side note to the birthday cake is my sudden realisation you can’t put candles on them anymore. It would rather have spoilt all the social distancing and elbow bumping if he’d been offered the chance to blow all over the cake before we ate it. Hopefully, they’ll be back next year. There again we may decide it wasn’t the cleverest of ideas in the first place.

One last thing to tell you is my summer of al fresco coffee moved on a step yesterday. Up until now, the only coffee’s I have had out since lockdown easing started have been takeaways. A quick, masked venture into a coffee shop, followed by an equally quick retreat to drink elsewhere. Yesterday was different though. On the hottest day of the year so far in the UK, I went to the spacious gardens of the Assembly House here in Norwich for perfectly safe, perfectly distanced coffee and cake. The whole thing was wonderful and felt like a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ moment.

So that’s what’s been happening and if the weather stays good I think you might be getting a few more updates from the garden. I can recommend alfresco writing.