Up at 5.45, as usual.
Out to the garden to retrieve a bowl of dough. Yup!
The garden? By Xmas eve, the fridge is full and the heating on. Only cool place to leave a yeast dough to rise overnight - remove a hanging basket, and hang the bowl in a bag from the hook, safe from marauding foxes.
Turned down the house heating. Half an hour to work the dough into cinnamon rolls; leave in the quickly cooling kitchen to prove again for at least an hour and a half. Into the oven. Only then turn up the heating again ... and (though I say it myself) the most gorgeous Xmas breakfast.
Now a family tradition - dad's special cinnamon rolls; the taste and texture SO much improved by the slow overnight cool rise.
THEY all think I go to all that trouble because they like my buns. THEY don't know I turn the heating so far down for a couple of hours. THEY just snuggle deeper into their duvets, and sleep a little later.
Sound like a real faff? THEY are EVER so appreciative of the "effort" I go to, just to start the day well.
Youngest is twenty. And they still haven't figured - after years and years.
You know better.
It makes for a brilliant hour and a half of early morning ride. Empty roads, just glorious peace. Doesn't really matter how mad the rest of the day gets, I can face it with equanimity.
