I have cooked things.
I have curried a chicken in sweet yoghurt and coconut. I have cooked meatballs in cream and tomato sauce. I have baked potatoes stuffed with peppery cheese and ham. I have cooked what Mark refers to as a pottage, which is a rich stew of nuts and vegetables steeped for hours in herbs and cream and wine and tomatoes, with a little bacon as a gesture towards our carnivorous status. I have cooked brown rice and jasmine rice and wild rice, frying them in butter and then simmering them gently for ages in their pans of spices and stock.
After that I beat cream and honey yoghurt and cream cheese with some brown sugar and blueberries and raspberries and chopped strawberries so that we could still eat puddings without getting scurvy.
When I went out I left a chicken on a slow six-hour roast in the oven, with salt and garlic and peppery spices rubbed underneath its skin to soak into it as it steams.
I am feeling very self-righteously pleased with myself. I am going to be guaranteed a place in Heaven because I feed my family so well and thoughtfully.
Actually I feed me well and thoughtfully, the family just happen to share it. I am not so much an enthusiastic cook as an enthusiastic eater.
In fact I am trying to clear the decks so that I can get on and write the sequel to the adventure story that nobody has bought yet.
I have still heard as good as nothing about this. I have sent it to several agents who I thought might like it, and to a few more who I thought probably wouldn’t, because of their existing client lists and self-reported tastes. One or two of the last group have replied saying ‘not for us but thanks.’ One of them even added a note to say ‘but I do think it’s jolly well written’, which was kind.
None of the first group have replied at all, even the ones who promise that they will get back to you with a definite yes or no.
I must have just hit a glut in the literary market, maybe hundreds of other people have overspent at Christmas as well and tried their luck at making a fortune from the written word.
In fact I am quite pleased by the silence, because it is not nice when somebody tells you to buzz off, even if you know really that they only represent serious writers of political biography and historical analysis. It is much nicer to think that my story is still out there, hopefully trying its luck in the world, patiently waiting in the quiet corner of somebody’s office to be noticed.
I think it would be horrible to have had it sent back from the very last place and know that I didn’t have a story anywhere at all in the world except in my Desktop folder.
In consequence of this I have decided that I am going to get on with Son of Story, and also send the first to a few more agents, just so that I can keep it going.
Obviously I can’t do this in a dusty house with an empty fridge.
Hence I have spent several days dusting and refilling depleted food supplies, and soon I will be able to get on with it with a clear conscience. I am looking forward to this moment, not least because I have done something uncomfortable to my sciatic nerve, and sitting down jobs are by far and away my favourite sort at the moment.
I looked this up on the Internet today in the hope that it would prescribe complete bed rest for a fortnight, but disappointingly it said to do some stretching exercises and that it would probably get better by itself. I was not impressed with this.
Mark has spent the day working on the camper van. I attach the above photograph as an example of what a well-fed man can do.
