Simnel Cake?

          Whenever Easter comes around, I think of a temporary job I once had as a student. It was in a bakery, helping out with the seasonal surge in demand for hot cross buns, one of my tasks being to stick the crosses on them before they went into the oven. The work was rewarding only insofar as it paid a wage and I got to take home a lot of wonky buns, which – for a student – was a significant bonus, though it may also be the reason why my appetite for them subsequently waned. In fact, I haven’t eaten one for years but, this Easter, as we were expecting a visitor, I bought some from the local craft bakery. Our guest brought simnel cake, another traditional, seasonal delicacy, but it was put away for later and we scoffed the buns before they went stale.

          Ever since I opted for atheism, at around the age of 14, I’ve been a bit vague on the Christian mythology surrounding Easter. So, it’s quite fortuitous that the celebration of spring coincides with the religious festival. It means that we all get to have a holiday and we non-believers don’t feel resentful of not being included or fraudulent for paying lip-service. The conflation of the resurrection story with the actual renewal of nature usefully blurs the meaning of the festivities, so we can all rest easy. On Easter Sunday, however, I experienced something approximating a resurrection myself. Having woken at my usual time, I fell back into a slumber for an hour, during which I dreamt I was trapped in a coma from which I could not escape, despite my desperate struggle to do so. When I finally did awake, it was with some relief, though I remained in a zombie-like stupor until lunchtime. Could the experience have been some sort of epiphany imposed on me from the spiritual powers I had so long denied? It was a question that preyed for a while on my mind, where it had plenty of room to flourish, as nothing else was going on there.

          Eventually, I ventured out into the spring sunshine to do a bit of seasonal foraging and clear my head. I picked some fennel leaf, darkly green and aromatic, for concocting a herbal infusion. I prefer tea, myself, but we were expecting visitors who have an aversion to caffeine and I was keen to impress. I also pulled a few fistfuls of wild garlic leaves, with which to make a form of pesto. It’s something I’ve done before but, this year, I have also made it with the leafy tops of carrots and, separately, beetroot. And, having overcome my preconception that only basil can be used to make tasty pesto, I have also learned that pasta is not its only companion. Spread on toast before topping with cheese, or on baked potato instead of butter, they all add extra depth of flavour to their host carbs.

          The holiday is over now, though lots of people will not return until next week – including the bloke who promised to fix my OH’s bike by today. It is still languishing in the workshop, where his co-worker is struggling to cope with his mate’s legacy of rash promises. Meanwhile, my OH has fallen out of love with my bike and is now refusing to ride it, for reasons I have yet to fathom. Still, the situation briefly provided me with the excuse I needed to try out one of those e-bikes that are now docked around the city. The cost seems reasonable at £1 to unlock and 15p per minute thereafter but, unless you go really fast, it isn’t cheap. My ride back from the cinema cost £3.20 and I had to walk ten minutes from the nearest docking station to home. Still, there was simnel cake and tea for consolation when I got there.