Mummers, Morris Men and the Roast Beef of Olde England

Wake at a quarter to eight and make a full English breakfast with tea and eat this whilst listening to the first episode of "Ulysses, the Martello tower", on radio 4. Like almost everyone else, I tried reading the book and failed years ago, although I had liked "Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a young man". As a dramatised audio production it is much easier to follow and I shall download the other episodes and finish the book this way. The weather forecast for Scarborough has deteriorated, so I will stay local today. As its market day, I will go to Beverley, there are one or two things I need and I like the buzz on a Saturday. I drive to town and park on Manor Road, near Saint Mary's, Louis' school, and walk the half mile or so to the market. The forecast was fine for Beverley, but it's cloudy and spitting rain as I reach town, just hope my coloured washing dries that I pegged out before I left. At Market Cross a group of Morris men are performing and there are Mummers playing between Toll Gavel and Butcher Row. It's all part of the folk festival and the performers, they look like solicitors and estate agents mostly, are giving it some Welly! In "Harrods", as we call it, or Boyes general store, as it's properly named, I buy a new telephone cord, a milk jug and some cook's whisks. The whole lot costing less than a fiver. Outside in Wednesday Market another folk group are performing, the usual buskers that occupy the town on Market day must have been given their marching orders for the festival. A pity, they have more talent! I make my way back towards Saturday Market and find a hardback copy of Annie Proulx's "Accordian Crimes" in a charity bookshop for £3.50. I will donate it to the library once read. I try to buy beef dripping, in which to roast my brisket, but there's none to be had. We seem to obsess about low fat, when the real villain is sugar, the scientific evidence has been suppressed, but is now starting to emerge. As I make my way round the market, I resist the temptation to buy aubergine and other vegetables as I don't want to have to lug the weight all the way back to the car. It comes on to rain quite heavily, so take shelter in Perk-u-later, where I order a tea and a scone. I read the intro to the Proulx book whilst eating the snack and get a text from Sarah asking me out for Father's Day. We settle on a trip to Hornsea, I will take Louis swimming whilst she and Alice visit the Freeport and then we will all have fish and chips at Sullivan's. On my way back to the car I pop into Tesco's and buy some cannelloni, lemon juice and mature Gouda cheese. I get home for two and miraculously my washing has dried, so I fetch it in before the next shower. Then set too to prepare dinner, after first finishing off the last slice of smoked salmon with Philadelphia cheese on rye toast, sprinkled with lemon and black pepper. Another episode of Joyce is on as I peel the parsnips and roasting potatoes, it really is very well done. I stick the oven on at 180c, rest the brisket on the vegetables in the roasting dish and leave it to cook slowly for a couple of hours. Once it's in the oven, I peel some carrots and turnips, chop some cabbage and then stick these in the pressure cooker, so that they are ready to go when the meat is cooked. The forecast for next week is good and I am tempted to take the car and head off for a few days walking in the lake district. After a bit of web searching, I find a bed and breakfast in Kendal for four nights at £120. Unless I am urgently needed, I am sorely tempted to bunk off for a few days. The alarm on the oven sounds, and I take the meat and roast vegetables and put them in a separate roasting tin, drain some dripping from the original dish into an ovenware dish for Yorkshire pudding, turn the oven up to turbo heat and put the meat and veg back in to brown. Put the pressure cooker on to boil and then make a gravy with the juices from the beef and put that on a low heat to reduce. The Yorkshire pudding batter I had whipped up earlier, and so, once the fat in the ovenware is smoking, I pour the batter in the dish and put it back in the oven. The meat, parsnips and potatoes are nicely browned, cover these with kitchen foil and leave them to rest, whilst draining the cabbage and mashing the carrots and turnips with a little butter and ground lack pepper. Carve the beef, plate the nicely risen Yorkshire pudding and lay the beef, roast vegetables, carrot and turnip mash and cabbage on top and then add gravy. As my kitchen is quite small the choreography for a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings is a bit of a fuss, particularly when I could have gone to a carvery for a fiver! Still the result tastes very good and the meat will feed me for two or three days. After dinner, I wash up and then settle down to read the only LeCarre I have not yet read, it was published in 1962, and may well have been his first novel. Around nine o'clock I make a beef sandwich and then read on until bedtime.