The play's the thing.....

I took my mum to see The Hard Problem, the new Top Stoppard play, last week at the delightfully revamped Dorfman Theatre at the National. It's about...... consciousness, I think. What is it?
What's the difference between the mind and the brain? And the answer is..... I don't know. And I'm not sure Tom does but no matter, it was a lot of fun trying to find out. Tom Stoppard's stuff is often very funny and as a friend once said to me after we'd been to see Rock 'n' Roll, you feel more intelligent by osmosis just watching his plays. And although much of the science went over our heads, mum thought it was a great birthday present so job done. 

The other big news is my very own, home grown rhubarb is already ripe and ready here in the rhubarb triangle of north London. Having been given the delicious cook book, Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour, for Christmas I was inspired to create this pudding..... rhubarb with rosewater yogurt and pistachios.

Top tip: try something hard and expand your mind....while you can still remember to do so!!

Age cannot wither her…but does make her bloody tierd….

Everyone seems to be saying the same thing .......  it’s been a long week. I think it's the weather. It's exhausting.

I went to a Christening at Emmanuel College in Cambridge and the sun actually shone for my friend’s son. We went on the train. A late marriage quickly followed by a much wanted baby meant it was a very special day. There were ducks on the lawn. Our party had swelled for the return. We bought wine at the station M&S and continued the celebration with a train- party on the journey home.

I met someone some weeks ago but I don’t know if we're dating or not. It's perplexing me and so I made a triple layer, Devil’s Food cake for my boy's birthday, with white chocolate frosting, from a recipe in the Magnolia Bakery Cook Book. I didn’t know I was making a triple layer cake because I hadn’t read it properly. I had enough frosting to ice most of north London.

I had dinner with friend’s and drank too much wine because the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not had not called. So, I decided I wasn't dating him. When I got home I discovered I had a missed call from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not, hoping we were still on for our date at the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican. So, I decided I was dating him. 

I went to the cinema and saw Blackthorn, the story Butch Cassidy seeing out his retirement in Bolivia, and fell in love with Sam Shepard. Again. And Bolivia. When I was in Argentina this time last year, I travelled north to Salta, near the border with Bolivia and drank mate surrounded by the hills of 7 colours and walked on the salt flats, pretending I was Etta Place. And I wished I was there again.

I went to the Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican with the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not. It was a delight. We went for a noisy drink in The Slaughtered Lamb but we are old and it was loud. So we went for a quiet drink in St. John Bar & Restaurant. It reminds me of being in New York. And I wished I was there again.

A confusing good-bye from the person I don’t know if I’m dating or not left me confused. The drama kept me awake. So when I got home from work I picked some rhubarb from my yard and made Raspberry & Rhubarb Crumble Cakes with Marscapone. And ate them on the sofa watching Episodes and Graham Norton and I thought, if you have to wonder if you're dating someone or not then the answer is probably in the question....

Top tip: Go see: Jeff Who Lives At Home…..made me laugh, made me cry and Susan Sarandon looks brilliant…the woman’s 65!!

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb......

As I have reported previously on these pages, I am not a natural gardener. But having had a modicum of success with tomatoes and rocket and basil and coriander last year, I thought, hoped, that fruit and veg maybe where my green fingered talents lay. So, my gardening friend gave some plants to plant. The ruby chard started well and then sort of died. The brussel sprout has done anything but, the kale started well but has stopped and the cauliflower is all cauli and no flower. But the rhubarb has thrived. I was told the two types, the names of which I now forget, needed to winter before they could be picked and crumbled, roasted, fooled, whatever..... and low, through the dank soil they continue to poke and bloom.....

Grow my pretties......

Doctor, doctor I I've got rhubarb

Don't' worry you can get cream for that.....

Rain lashed London shone in the bright morning sunlight. Stick trees poked the high blue sky through thin chilled air. On the bus I saw a baby cocooned in his buggy, nothing but his round, hairless head poking out. He had the look of a man of 80 rather than his 18 months, I domed forehead, knowing blue-grey eyes, a down-turned mouth slow to smile a toothless grin. He peered about him with a world weary gaze. The bus stopped to let a funeral procession pass: 4 large long black cars following a hearse containing a giant, wicker eco-coffin, a coffin-shaped, man-sized, moses basket with a lid with toggles to keep it fastened....from the cradle to the grave......

Top tip: Go see The Artist........I'm not sure it's quite 'the greatest movie ever' but it's delightfully charming and very beautiful.....