Cooking a breakfast pancake feast for my most beloved people, all of them sitting in my garden, in the sunshine. I still dream about taking J and the kids around the world, but days like this also make me daydream about painting the kitchen, going on a bike ride, having another day like this.
In the afternoon I send the kids up some local apple trees, and we return with an enormous bag of fruit. I find a recipe for cheddar and apple pie, and after slaving in the kitchen for hours (I end up making a pie for our neighbour too, such is the glut) while they watch Great British Bake Off, I am forced to listen to my tiny Paul Hollywood telling me with familliar unbearded bluntness that my pastry is too salty. For that reason, I offer you instead my recipe for the roast peaches I made the night before, easy and quick and tear-jerkingly delicious.
4 fairly hard peaches
2-3 tablespoons of brown sugar
2 tsp of vanilla paste
75ml water
Cut the peaches along the seam and twist apart, leaving in the stone. Put in a deep sided-baking dish, sprinkle with the sugar and drizzle over the vanilla paste. Put in a pre-heated oven - maybe 180c - and leave for 15 minutes. Once that time is up, pour the water over the peaches. Leave in the oven for another 20 minutes, until they look like forlorn old shoes. Serve two halves in each bowl, with a bowl of cool, cool cream.