Lockdown in Paris : Day Twenty-One
Monday 6th April
9h45 : Well here it is, we’re three weeks in. I’ve decided to celebrate this milestone by doing exactly what I’ve been doing every day for the last twenty-one days.
10h : Video-called my sister and nieces and had one of those moments of maddening frustration at not being able to reach through the screen and squdge their faces.
11h : Time to watch Hook and emote. Sometimes I feel like the one time I experience emotions like normal people is when I’m alone watching films that tug on my one withered heart-string. In the case of Hook I’m always waiting for that bit where the little Lost Boy smooths out Robin Williams’ face and goes, “Oh there you are, Peter!” Ye Gads! On the way up to that line I’m thinking It won’t get me this time, I’m over it, I’ve seen it so many times that surely- and then the sweeping violins come in and my face starts leaking.
12h35 : I love that this is a movie for adults hidden inside a kids’ adventure. It’s basically yelling ADULTS ARE THE WORST DON’T YOU DARE GROW UP AND BECOME A BORING OLD BOOT, UGH. It’s a message I can really get behind, (she said, from her bunk-bed).
12h50 : Tink’s little clock house is uncannily similar to mine. Balcony and everything. Maybe I should get a pixie cut and some of those wings on elastic bands - lend my living arrangements some kind of fantastical logic. Tonight I’ll yell, GOODNIGHT, NEVERLAND! before turning off the lamp to get a feel for it.
14h15 : It’s raining, which makes for a nice change. Sometimes I feel like grey weather and rain can be a relief - I feel like it takes the pressure off. You’re always expected to do something when the weather is good, and I resent being expected to do anything. It’s convenient to be able to blame my natural inertia on the weather - something that was a lot easier to do in the north of England let me tell you. Anyway my tan was getting a bit ridiculous for the first week in April, and I got to stick my head out of the window and smell one of my favourite smells of all time, which is rain on warm Paris rooftops.
15h: Watched the latest episode of Belgravia, which continues to be a big bag of blah. It’s packed full of characters that are either so detestable I can hardly watch them when they’re on the screen, or so terrifyingly beige that I really couldn’t care less what happens to them. Obviously I will watch it religiously every week.
16h22 : I’m now reading The Cider House Rules, which is one of those books that’s sort of appallingly good. While reading it I’m aware that part of my brain is just staggering through the pages going, But...how...what?...but…I don’t…this is... I had a similarly evangelical experience with Donna Tartt years ago - I can so clearly remember sitting on a train to Manchester reading A Secret History and having to stop reading mid-paragraph in a kind of panic as my whole world expanded to accommodate her writing. I couldn’t comprehend how good she was, it was unthinkable, the rules had to be rewritten. Like meeting an alien or having some kind of religious experience I had to just stop and recalibrate everything.
17h04 : I thought - I know, I’ll watch an episode of Tiger King.
20h10 : I am now watching episode five of Tiger King. Curse you, Netflix! This was not the plan. To make myself feel more productive during this unexpected Tiger King Binge, I decided to make a cake, despite the fact that I do not own a mixer, a set of scales or a mixing bowl. I found a simple loaf-cake recipe and set to it with a(nother) gin and tonic, pausing every now and then to comment on the absolute insanity I was seeing on screen. Eg. “Hold on - off?! It tore her arm off? Did you just say OFF?!” etc. So I bashed around the kitchen for a while making my “cake” (I feel sure the quotation marks will prove necessary) covering everything including myself in flour and doing a fair amount of guesswork. I left out baking powder because I don’t have any so I don’t think we’ll be needing the words “light” or “fluffy” any time soon. Undeservedly pleased with myself, I hefted the thing into the “oven” and returned to my chair, where I scrolled down the recipe on my phone to the comments and review section. There I found a question about the kind of milk the recipe requires, and having read the polite response from the author indicating that any milk would do I had my own enquiry - there’s supposed to be milk in it? I returned to the recipe. There was supposed to be milk in it. So basically god knows what’s going to emerge from the oven but it’s certainly not going to be what the recipe was aiming for. But it will be cake!! Some form of cake. Something vaguely related to cake.
20h31 : Well, I just turned the “cake” out of the silicone loaf tin and almost broke a plate in the process. You know that bit in Lord of the Rings where Bilbo tips the ring out of his hand and it just lands on the floor like it weighs a million tons? That’s my cake. If it was hung round Frodo’s neck he’d have quit the Fellowship in five minutes flat and left Middle Earth to its fate. I fear it might be indigestible. I’m going to eat every leaden slice of it.
20h42 : Now, let’s see what on earth is going to happen with this Tiger King, shall we?
