Simnel Cake

I reflect on what a charming Easter holiday it has been, and the pleasure I took in visiting the ancestral pile in the verdant countryside of my native lands. I think Spring is firmly sprung, what a delight to awaken each sun-kissed morn to the sound of birds singing and busying themselves, many already into their first brood of the year. Jackdaws, blackbirds, thrushes, blue tits, goldfinches, buzzards, just some of the various of our feathered friends urgently working away. The garden is green again, with the daffodils and primroses bringing their yellow beauty to share and reflect the still slightly watery sunshine, and the trees, pear tree, plum trees, apple trees, damsons and greengages, covered in buds soon to erupt into leafy growth and blossoms, but the real treat of the weekend was the scent of the hyacinths. Mmmmm.

And around the home, an Easter Sunday delight of roast lamb, from the local farm, and best of all, great chunks of home-made Simnel cake, spot on for a marzipan enthusiast like me. Easter television does its best to disappoint - no 'Ben-Hur', for example, but there was plenty to distract.

I hope it was as pleasurable for you too, my friends, whatever you did with the Spring break.

And just in case you think this all sounds just too nice, and you're not keen on this happy Krusty with his cod-Wordsworth eulogising - and let's face it, cod-Wordsworth is a really quite unpleasant concept, perhaps even more unpleasant than the fact and actuality of the late poet-laureate's works themselves (does anyone really read that drivel for pleasure?) - don't fret. Krusty has already found things to carp about since returning to his lair, and is winding up for a rant soon enough, and besides, tomorrow means back to the melee.