In my cheerier mood, I read for a while last night before treating myself to an early night. That’s a slight lie actually. Before settling down to read (a book called Kill Your Friends that is, quite frankly, offensive - yes, even to me) I did a spot of revision. Throughout my life, an evening’s revision can only mean one thing: an exam in the morning. Not in the afternoon, that’s what morning revision is for. In the morning. Eight o’clock in the morning to be precise, the earliest exam of my life to date.
The last exam I sat was the Commonwealth paper of my History finals. I remember it well. It was raining, and I arrived under a Union Jack umbrella, which amused me briefly. I was completely bald, having shaved my head with a bic razor two nights previously after a tremendous all day bender in the Cricketers Arms, celebrating the 2.1 I was certain my penultimate final had secured me. This next exam, coming almost a decade later, was a bit more straightforward. Back then, I had three hours to answer three questions. Can the failure of the British mandate in Palestine be explained by the events of 1917? This time I have one hour to answer one hundred. What grape is Chablis made from? a) Merlot b) Pinot Noir c) Chardonnay. I manage to maintain my 100% record of being the first person to leave every exam I have ever sat, and head for the coffee machine after ten minutes or so.
With the wine exam out of the way, it’s time for the Christmas demo. There is a nice light-hearted feel to proceedings that compensates for some of the anguish of yesterday’s demo. We make plum puddings, roast turkeys (muslin soaked in butter to save you from basting, can’t argue with that), Yule logs, an absurd chocolate Christmas tree that looked ready to topple over at any second, mince pies, sherry trifle, etc etc. I was not alone in being excruciatingly hungry, due to the early start, and during the break stuffed my face with mince pies and guzzled a pint or two of coffee. Lunch was turkey, which was lovely but produced the similar effect to a heavy sedative; something just a notch or two below general anaesthetic. That and the mulled wine, anyway.
We skipped through a filo pastry demo for an hour, that was barely instructive, and headed for a tour of Ballymaloe House. This was fun, and interesting, but I have been living in a cottage here anyway so it wasn't that interesting. Mrs Allen, who owns the house and began it as a hotel and restaurant back in the sixties, gave a lovely talk though. She is a quite remarkable woman, it must be said, and still going strong in her mid-eighties. All that butter and cream can’t be that bad for you, now can it?
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