50:50

On the 29th of January I belatedly celebrated my 50th birthday over lunch with a small group of friends at The Glasshouse in Kew, a restaurant with one star in the Guide Michelin . As a food enthusiast this fine-dining experience was one of the first items to be added to the list and had been impatiently anticipated for most of the previous twelve months! The Glasshouse is quite a small restaurant, just a few steps from the station, and we were given a warm welcome from the moment we walked through the door. The front of house staff were friendly but not gushing, every table was full and the dining room was warm, bright and buzzing with conversation. Drinks were ordered. Kir was my choice of aperitif and then with the main course I shared a bottle of Corbieres which I chose purely because it was the cheapest red wine on the list, although it did not disappoint! Our attention then turned to the menu, which was a set lunch for £50 with a limited selection of options but still so...

If you have reached 50 and never seen a ballet, it is only fitting to start with The Nutcracker, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden no less! I visited in January, when the Omicron variant was at its most troublesome, and in the seven days leading up to the show I had already received three emails detailing cast changes. On arrival the latest substitutions were on display in the foyer, followed by an announcement of yet more changes by the director just before the performance began. A further message at the end of the interval informed us that yet another change was being made in the second half and one wondered if there were any dancers left. At any moment the audience might be urgently asked "is there a dancer in the house?" Many of the company were dancing parts that they were quite unfamiliar with but their performances were still extraordinary and never has applause been so well deserved.

 A quick pre-Christmas trip to Southampton provided me with the opportunity to complete this task.  I am slightly intimidated by IKEA. The bizarre one way system, the room mock-ups which put my home to shame, the complete inability to pronounce the name of anything, the 8000 steps required just to buy some plants and a tool kit........ The meatballs were great though!

I love to cook but I'm not much of a baker. It looks messy, the marzipan was too thick and the royal icing didn't set properly - but I enjoyed making it and eating it nonetheless!

This particular item on the list definitely fits into the "trying to adult successfully" category - see also posts on not killing houseplants and saving money - and isn't an exciting task to tick off. As I have no dependents, deciding what happens to whatever is left when my life ends has never seemed urgent. But then there was Covid, and the terrifying first lock-down when none of us knew if our days were numbered. I may not have had strong feelings about who inherited from me but I sure as hell knew who shouldn't and didn't want the government or some distant stranger of a relative to benefit from my demise. So I made an appointment through Macmillan Cancer Support's free will writing service and everything was done in a pleasant phone call, then double-checked by email before they sent me the document to be signed and witnessed. It costs you nothing to use their service but of course a small donation in your will will be most welcome and put to very good us...