My last German report before ‘O’ Level read, “His case is not entirely without hope.” It was wrong. My case was entirely without hope. So six decades later I thought I would try again on the basis that I now understood a lot more about grammar, was less likely to mess around at the back of the class and could learn alongside grandson Sammie. Unfortunately the same impediment to my mastery of the subject remains. Why on earth does German require three genders? It’s like a shopping list: I can remember two items but not three. However, Duolingo is a far more encouraging and patient teacher than Fritz, our German master, ever was. Duolingo reassures me that I’m ‘awesome’; Fritz never did. Duolingo chases me up if I miss a lesson, so did Fritz but with less enthusiasm.
However, I can forgive German for its three genders because it has a splendid verb, Frühstücken, a wonderfully efficient and direct way of saying to have breakfast. It lends a gravitas to the meal, much as in English ‘to dine’ sounds far more formal and orderly than gnawing at a pizza in front of the telly, or for that matter grabbing a bite of lunch. It elevates breakfast to the status of a proper sit-down meal with courses and conversation,
rather than something that’s skipped or scoffed on the run.
During lockdown we need to transform mundane activities into special celebrations, not just regard food as a means of survival but relish it ceremonially like a Japanese tea ritual. So it was with Saturday breakfast this morning – a full Ulster fry complete with potato bread (fadge), soda bread, plus of course the sausages, bacon and egg. We omitted the black pudding, white pudding and wheaten bread. This is the first thing I always look forward to after crossing the Irish Sea and this year we had imported a large quantity of Irish breads. Once, when my parents visited, their accommodation offered an Ulster High Tea and an Ulster Breakfast. They were actually identical. I have regarded cooked breakfasts with a special reverence ever since I learned they were bad for me. But their appeal has survived the current wisdom that, because they are low in carbohydrates they are now good for me, providing I exercise.
I badly miss the monthly meetings of the Peak Boys Breakfast Club, that occasion when several august and wise gentlemen convene to discuss how the world could be improved, a bit like a United Nations Assembly meeting or even Sage. Other patrons of the various cafes might find us loud, but if they listened carefully they would gain enormous benefit. Strict parameters are laid down as to what constitutes A Full English – hash browns? Cappuccino? We think not. Each year our best breakfast provider is awarded the Golden Sausage: The Loaf in Crich 2016, Mercia in Wirksworth 2017, Fuel in Holloway 2018 and 2019.
I am delighted to announce that we now have some sherry in the cupboard so we can revive another important ritual – sherry after church. Except now we have to do it without the church! Sherry seems a little twee and out of fashion, reminiscent of Victorian clergymen or a relaxing pre-dinner aperitif after the hunt, but bring it back, I say. Let us transform the banal and routine into observances to look forward to and reverence and ritualise. We could dress for dinner, get out the best glasses, use napkins in rings instead of our sleeves, even wash our hands. Anything to create landmarks in the calendar and take up cutlery against endless, formless, featureless days.
In Crich Marketplace there was a soft Autumn sun this morning. A few yards down Sandy Lane and we entered thick fog. From Alderwasley, Crich was suffused in a gauze of mist, a Disneyesque fairy village. On the trees and walls there were fine cobwebs “bejewelled in dew” as the Romantic poets would have said. It’s such a pity that the patronising lady with the tinny robotic voice at O2 spoiled it by making it clear that there was no conceivable way of sorting out an anomaly in our account or speaking to a breathing human being. Then an innocent girl phoned with the worrying news that we had recently had a mysterious accident unknown to us. Both women received a most vehement execration to contemplate over the weekend. But what a lifting in mood when Biden’s victory was announced. How can Trump not see that he is the laughing stock of the world? Let’s wait to see him ambulanced out of the White House in a strait jacket. Least sought after job of the day? Trump’s caddy and golf cart driver on his Virginia Golf Course this afternoon.