Rather a different Easter for everyone this year, not allowed out to visit church or friends and family. Who managed to get Easter eggs? I ordered some online but forgot to allow for our post still being redirected, so George has ended up with way too much chocolate for one person.

In addition to my cocktail experiments I’ll give a few photos of the garden to cheer you up. The header is of the supermoon we had the other night, so-called pink but not in colour. It refers to some US flowers that are pink in colour and blooming around now. I think I’ll call it my daffodil supermoon.

I have received comments about the size of our drinks bar. All I can say is, wait until you reach our advanced age. People give you bottles for Christmas, Easter, birthdays and any other event they can think of. When you go on holiday and taste the local speciality you enjoy it so much you bring bottles back, not thinking what it will taste like in dark dank Somerset. When shopping you might spot something that looks interesting (the plum and clementine gin we finished last week being a case in point). You cannot abide waste so don’t throw it away, especially as alcohol doesn’t go off. Finally (I think, there could be other reasons I’ve not thought of yet), we have the space.

Before I forget, I have been informed by JD that I got the race details wrong. I have all the dates and stops correct but I’ve put some of the Legs in the wrong place, a bit like Eric Morecambe playing Grieg’s piano concerto with “Mr Preview” (Andre Previn): all the notes but not necessarily in the right order. If you want to watch it and have a laugh here’s the link to the three minute sketch from 1971 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMPEUcVyJsc. (I’ll sort out the race details when it happens).

To the garden. In a normal year I’d buy lots of bulbs and our industrious gardener would plant them up for me, so we’d have a wonderful display all year round.

As I wasn’t here when the bulb catalogues came out, nor intended to be here now, this is the view this year. I cannot even go to the garden centre and buy anything. I hope it’s not the same empty pots all year, it’s going to be very boring. Maybe I could move them around every month, or knit flowers now that I’m not knitting Unicef and Qingdao beanies? Hmmm.

Having depressed myself with the bareness, let’s return to the cocktails. You’ll remember that the first was Maiden’s Dream, which consists of equal quantities of absinthe and gin with a third of grenadine. The recipe said to make it in a long glass (highball or Collins for those of you who like to be precise). We decided that these three ingredients on their own were possibly a little bit too alcoholic so added ice and sparkling water. Here’s the result, I think it’s an acquired taste. A little aniseedy as you’d predict plus a little fruity. (JD asked if we had to keep taking selfies of us drinking so this is just the glass. Normal service will be resumed later).

Back to my flowers, normally (sorry, you’ll probably be getting this word a lot in the next few months) I’d have hundreds of tulips everywhere, and the pots above would have alternate colours, different each year depending on my mood when I bought the bulbs. You are advised to buy new bulbs each year as they are bred to not be as vigorous in subsequent years, so I put the old bulbs around the garden and see what comes up (literally). Here are a couple, I cannot remember the names but probably have a list if you need to know.

Not quite the dazzling display I’m used to. Next year maybe…

As my Dream didn’t tally with the Maiden’s Dream (whoever she was), a couple of days later we decided to try Rimbaud’s Left Hand. Intriguing who thinks up these names. On your behalf (unless you studied French literature, in which case apologies for all the errors) I did a bit of research. I’m not a Wiki addict so tackled Britannica. Some years ago in the late 1990’s I bought possibly the last paper version, comprising 32 volumes (three being indices) and I’ve a special bookshelf for them, but these days I use the interweb. I’m sure nothing has changed from the paper version as he died in 1891. Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet: I find his poems rather difficult to comprehend, even when translated into English (and I guess more so in their native French as I never got beyond what were then ‘O’ levels and I think are now GCSE’s, at 16 years old). At the age of 27 he declared he’d given up on the idea of work and would dedicate his energy to being a poet. Good job George doesn’t read this blog, I’d not want to encourage his ideas!

There’s a lot of guff about visions and consciousness and (here we begin to come to the point) he underwent fasting and pain, drink (including absinthe) and drugs in order to experience hallucinations. He got involved with Verlaine (another French poet) and his wife in a menage a trois initially. Verlaine and Rimbaud had a tempestuous relationship, running off to London at one stage. At the end of their relationship, Verlaine shot Rimbaud in his LEFT HAND and was imprisoned for two years. Hence the name of the cocktail (why you’d want to name a drink after someone’s maimed hand I’m not sure but I’m only a scientist). The cocktail officially is equal parts Aperol, Benedictine, Absinthe, lemon juice and pineapple juice with some rose water dropped into the centre. As we didn’t have all of these I created Rimbaud’s Right Hand: Aperol, Drambuie, Absinthe, and double Tropical juice (mostly apple and orange when you read the ingredients but a little pineapple, mango and passion fruit). I did have the rose water so that’s OK. Here I am drinking it (in the correct Martini glass) in JD’s greenhouse. It was delicious. I’ll try it again once I’ve been through the rest of the bar.

What else have we been up to? Chatting to people, trimming dogs, cutting grass, piano practice, clearing out stuff we always said we’d do, all the usual things you do when confined to quarters. I’ll introduce the second cocktail ingredient next time. A bientot!