November days — An Elegant Sufficiency

We’ve had some spectacular mists in the last few days, but in other ways, our November days appear to becoming rather like our March and April days. The new lockdown began on Thursday, prompting a discussion along similar lines to Matthew Parris’ comment in The Times last week:

Midnight oil Pin back your ears for a short but intense blast of nitpicking. Answer me this. If Cinderella got back from the ball just as the clock struck midnight on Saturday, was the ball on Saturday or Friday? I say Saturday. I ask because after the prime minister’s weekend announcement that new lockdown measures “will be time-limited, starting next Thursday 5 November”, reporters confirmed that lockdown would come in “at midnight”. I assumed that would be midnight Thursday: the end of the day. But in fact it’s from the end of today, Wednesday. So which day should “midnight” attach to, the last or the next? I’ve done some research. Lexicographers agree that, strictly speaking, “midnight” is ante-meridian not post-meridian — in other words it attaches to the day that follows it; but that in popular usage it generally attaches to the preceding day.

I had been thinking that my hair appointment for Wednesday would be fine and didn’t question my dental checkup scheduled for Thursday, thinking that Friday would be the first day of restrictions. He’s correct, however, that

Something in the human brain, some kind of wiring snarl-up, really struggles at the interface between language and time. When we make a lunch date earlier, we bring it forward. But when the clocks “go forward” the time gets later, doesn’t it? The clocks “went back” recently. Try thinking about this for long, and you’ll get a sort of mental cramp. If you say “midnight tomorrow” you most certainly don’t mean tonight. Anyway, the good news is that by his own logic, when the PM says lockdown ends on Wednesday, December 2, he must mean midnight on Tuesday. My partner thinks this conversation supremely boring. I — honestly — find it gripping.

I’m not sure I find it gripping exactly, but I do think it’s fascinating.

Anyway, regardless of when it was all due to begin, one thing was sure. For the second time, the Scotland guidebook was returned to the shelf unused. Our planned escape to Gleneagles was not going to happen and my Hero spent a morning cancelling all the arrangements we’d made. In the meantime, my dentist confirmed they were going to be carrying on as normal and they looked forward to seeing me (more than I looked forward to seeing them) and my hairdresser cancelled, not because the salon would be closed on Wednesday but because her teenage son had just tested positive and the whole family were isolating.

My day was not without purpose, though. Guess what I did?

With wedding cakes to bake in the coming months, I finally made the move I’ve been thinking of taking for the last few years and bought a Kenwood Chef. Every time I make Christmas cakes in particular, I regret not hanging onto my Mum’s Chef and this year, for the first time, I was able to take advantage of a new machine in the kitchen.

I can never do things by halves though and as usual, I decided to make twice the recipe and bake two cakes at once. When it came to adding the fruit, this was too much for the Chef bowl (even though it’s the XXL one), so out came the wooden spoon and the elbow grease.

Twice the ingredients but the same washing up. Where’s a Hero when he’s needed?

Two fine cakes are now stashed away for a few weeks to mature and I can feel good that they’re done. Maybe next week I’ll make puddings?

My eyes went straight to the glorious colours on the cover of this month’s magazine in Waitrose last week and I felt the need to scan and keep it for inspiration, especially as I’ve been working on a new Interpretation and Staging course for the WI which is about to have its first run out. I’ve included the subject of flatlays in there and think this is a great example. (I’ve also included shelfies which have taken on new relevance in these days of Zoom backgrounds).

As I worked my way through the magazine, though, admiring more of those gorgeous pages as I went, it struck me that we’re not going to be doing much gathering in the next month, are we? The “hours in the kitchen” creating “showstopping spreads” are going to be few and far between for now, at least.