With the kids off at university, it is just the two of us left at home and the kitchen is officially closed
My nest is officially empty. After some last-minute flapping (how many succulents can you squeeze into a wheelie case, don’t pack a pestle and mortar heavier than a neutron star, that kind of thing), the last fledgling left. So it’s just the two of us and that means one thing. Not nudity – it’s 14C indoors here. The end of cooking. “I’ll make your birthday dinner,” I told my husband, grudgingly. “Then we stock up on beans and baking potatoes.” This is no empty promise: I’ve been preparing and anticipating for months.
Well before my sons left, I ran down our overstocked cupboards, treating food requests with miserly suspicion. No, you can’t have broccoli, this gluten-free muesli bought by accident in 2017 is sufficiently nutritious, and no, the black specks aren’t weevils. Probably. I used to be appalled at what my father would offer on my impromptu visits: three wizened apples, a thimble of sunflower seeds and a two-pack of shortbread fingers from Great Western Railway, the latter presented proudly as a decadent indulgence. Now that seems aspirational.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
