Asparagus! Norfolk! Two telly shows! A very good foundation! Dennis goes boating!

Also, a shameless plug for my podcast. So it's a bit me me me, this week 😬

What’s the priciest bunch of asparagus you’ve come across in the past couple of weeks? It’s asparagus season in the UK (it officially starts on St George’s Day, 23 April. Did you know that? I didn’t until my internet travels yesterday), which means fat bunches of it can now be found in supermarkets, markets and shops across the country - but you may need to sell your house or your least favourite child to be able to buy it BECAUSE IT’S SO MADLY EXPENSIVE.

I came across a bunch in a Kent farm shop a few weeks ago and was so tickled by the sight of British asparagus that, to my slight shame, I paid £7.50 for it. There were seven stalks in this bunch, so that made them £1.07 each. That’s pretty expensive, isn’t it? Can anyone do better? Still worth it though, I reckon, when dripping with butter and a light dusting of Maldon.

Imagine my over-excitement on Saturday, therefore, when I met a stall holder in Swaffham, Norfolk, who was flogging great big, local bunches of the stuff, stalks as thick as your thumb, for £3 a bunch. He supplies Waitrose, he told us proudly, and these were the rejects. He picked up a bunch to demonstrate - ‘this stalk bends that way, that one’s a bit short, that one’s bending the other way.’ It was wonky asparagus, in other words, that Waitrose didn’t want. My pal Zebedee and I, who were staying in Norfolk for the weekend with our friend Fi, each bought four bunches, exclaiming together about how cheap it was in a very embarrassing, London way. ‘Good GOD, have you SEEN the price of this asparagus? Shall we take the whole crate? Ha ha ha!’ (It wasn’t quite that bad. But it probably wasn’t far off.)

Doesn’t look that wonky, does it?

Swaffham market, by the way, is magnificent. Have you been? I’ve only driven through Swaffham before. I first went to Norfolk almost exactly this time 12 years ago, when rumour had it that the Prince and Princess of Wales were tarting up a house near Sandringham. I was working at Tatler at the time and this was just the sort of major story which got us excited, so I was duly despatched north (well, north of Vogue House, anyway) to cover this important news. I spent a week or so touring the county, speaking to various toffs about Norfolk and why the Royals liked it so much.

‘Are you going to mention the inbreeding?’ asked one of the first toffs I spoke to. He was an Old Etonian called Tom Blofeld who lived in a very pretty Regency house not far from Norwich. (Tom’s grandfather was at Eton with Ian Fleming and inspired the cat-bothering baddie, fyi.) I’m not sure I did mention the inbreeding in the end, but I had a thoroughly lovely time up there and rather fell in love with Norfolk - with the beaches, the big, flat landscapes, with the bird life, with walking across the marshes, with the potted shrimps from the Old Etonian fishmonger in Burnham Market (even the fishmonger’s posh in Norfolk), with the county’s relative isolation, out there on the knobbly buttock of Britain. I later moved to North Norfolk for a few months to write my third novel and fell in love with it even more. But I hadn’t been back for years, not until this weekend, and I previously never discovered the joys of Swaffham market.

It’s not deeply glam, Swaffham market. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly Aix-en-Provence. But cor was it fascinating. There was the asparagus man, a very nice fishmonger who was also flogging rabbits for £3.50. There was a terrific auction of stuff, and I really do mean stuff - old buckets, ancient gardening equipment in urgent need of repair, broken toys and so on - overseen by a man with a shepherd’s crook who didn’t absolutely look like a shepherd, and a woman who was almost impossible to understand. See video below.

At a nearby antiques stall, I fell upon an old salt and pepper shaker with immense glee because, well look at them:

Not bad for a fiver, right?

Fi then insisted we all go and have a quick look at one of the town’s TWO military antiques shops - Shabby Tatt - which sold old uniforms, old medals, old hand grenades, old daggers and the odd, fairly questionable WWII item.

You see? You just don’t get these kinds of things at trendy farmers markets in south-east London. Well worth making a trip if you happen to be in Norfolk on a Saturday any time soon.

Having bought so much asparagus, however, I was concerned about how to best get it safely back to London. The problem was, I had to drive from Norfolk to the Cotswolds on Sunday afternoon, a mere four hours across the country, because I’m interviewing DAME Jilly Cooper for You magazine later today (!!!!!!!!), and decided it would be easier to come here from Norfolk rather than go home to London and spend three hours in the car back to the country early this morning.

Dennis and I have stayed, very spoilingly, at Calcot Manor, an immensely posh and comfortable hotel not far from Tetbury (where the King lives when he’s not in his other houses). I suspect housekeeping might have been slightly surprised yesterday when they walked into my bathroom, although they’ve probably seen worse.

Anyway, I’m giving a bunch to Jilly today and I’m going to cart the rest home tonight.

BIG QUESTION: do you snap asparagus stems or cut them? I cooked for a friend recently and was about to cut them, my knife hovering above the stalks, when he rushed over and told me off. You have to snap them at the point they naturally bend, he said, that’s what the chefs do. But a week or so ago I watched James Martin on Saturday Morning and he said the exact opposite - that you lose too much stem if you snap them, so you should cut the asparagus where they start to turn purple instead. Any thoughts on this important issue?

Final word from John Morgan, the chap who wrote the original Debretts Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners. ‘Asparagus is always eaten with the left hand, and never with a knife and fork,’ John writes solemnly. ‘Its tips are dipped in an accompanying sauce or dressing and then eaten down to about an inch and a half from the end. It is a solecism to guzzle up these stumps and leave nothing on your plate.’

So there you have it. Enjoy your asparagus, but for heaven’s sake don’t embarrass yourself by eating it with your right hand.

Picture of the week

I’m not, as a rule, a huge kayaker. ‘Let’s go kayaking!’ someone cries on holiday, and I always think ‘Why?’ It’s cold, it’s wet, you can’t go very fast, your arms hurt, your back hurts, and getting in and out of them is always a deeply humiliating and humbling experience. Not for me.

But Fi had a kayak in her Norfolk barn and a river nearby, and Zebedee said it would be nice for Dennis to have his first boat trip, so I was persuaded. I have to say Zebedee did most of the work, including getting out and dragging us upstream at one point when we weren’t moving, but it did feel very lovely and Wind in the Willows. Dennis was no help at ALL with the oars, but I think he had a nice time - front legs on the side at all times - keeping watch for pirates.

Recommendations of the week

• Dying for Sex. This is the new Disney series starring Michelle Williams, based on a true story about an American who was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and promptly decided to leave her husband because she wanted to go on a journey of sexual exploration in the time she had left. It possibly won’t be for everyone because it’s a) about cancer b) about sex, and some quite outré sex at that. But I’ve loved it, and I’ve loved the acting (Rob Delaney! So good! You know, the guy from Catastrophe!), and I’ve loved the clever way it’s written - eg a desperately sad line followed by another which makes you honk with laughter. Also, it’s eight half-hour episodes and I love a half-hour episode of something, these days. Way less intimidating than committing to an hour. Which reminds me, the new series of Hacks has also just launched. I’ve banged on about Hacks here before, bewildered as to why it’s not more popular and known about. It’s the very funny adventures of a sort of Joan Rivers-figure and her young sidekick. Look, here’s the original trailer in case you’re interested. ALSO HALF-HOUR EPISODES.

• Hourglass foundation. I never think I’m very ‘good’ at make-up. I look at other people, and their perfect flicky eyeliner, and their perfect red lipstick, and think ‘How did you learn to do that?’ If I wear lipstick, I feel as if I’m playing at being a grown-up. I don’t even try to do flicky eyeliner anymore because I end up looking like a child who’s rummaged through her mother’s make-up bag. Instead, I tend to focus on my skin - on (trying to achieve) nice, glowy, dewy skin because it feels easier to get right, to me, than faffing about with eyeshadow and kohl pencils and lip liners and so on.

  This means I’m forever on the hunt for the perfect foundation/tinted moisturiser. I’ve used Beauty Pie’s tinted moisturiser for ages because it’s good for dry skin like mine, includes SPF 30 AND is also £12.50 a tube. Bargain. But Dennis recently chewed the end of the tube, which meant orange gunk oozed out all over my bathroom floor, so I decided to upgrade and try an Hourglass one instead. The bad news is the Hourglass one is not cheap. Not £12.50 a tube, sadly. It is £58 a tube. Eeesh. I know. Even more expensive than asparagus.

  The happier news is that’s it’s really very good - light, so it doesn’t feel like you’re plastering your face with wallpaper paste, and it leaves the skin with an almost luminescent glow. This may be too much for some who prefer to be more matt, but dust a bit of power over the top of your nose, chin and forehead after applying, and I reckon it’ll leave you with such peachy skin you’ll look around 11 years old. I wouldn’t have necessarily mentioned it here because it IS so expensive, but last week I walked past a woman at a book launch who genuinely stopped me to ask about my skin. ‘It’s like you’re wearing a filter in real life,’ she said, squinting at my face with suspicion, which, needless to say, delighted me. So if you need a new foundation and don’t need to eat for the next couple of weeks, maybe worth giving it a go?

  

  This is the one I mean.

Nonsense of the week

There was a slightly 🤢 story in the Telegraph yesterday about a ‘sperm race’ in LA over the weekend. It was billed as ‘the world’s first competitive sperm race’, and organised by four male teenage entrepreneurs who want more of a conversation about declining birth rate, and to raise awareness of male infertility. As the piece explained, samples were collected from the two, er, competitors, then placed on a 20cm ‘track’, which was magnified 100 times so the, er, spectators could see whose sperm would win. Tristan Mykel, the chap in the overalls above, was the victor. Quite an odd way to spend one’s weekend, although on balance I’d probably still rather watch this than the golf.

I’m always interested in fertility stories, though. Have been since I made my podcast about egg freezing five years ago. So the above reminded me of something else that I’ve been meaning to mention here. A few weeks ago, a very lovely fertility nurse messaged me on Instagram. Kate Davies is a woman I first spoke to five or so years ago, when I was making my podcast about egg freezing. She now works for a firm called viO HeathTech, which specialises in all things ovaries, and messaged me to say that egg freezing numbers are still going up and up and UP. According to the most recently available figures, says Kate, rates have increased 81 percent since 2019. She also said she still plugs my podcast in a webinar she offers to employers, and told me to mention it again here because she’s still seeing such a boom in numbers.

I know plenty of readers may already know about this podcast, and I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but maybe not for a while. So for any recent readers (hi! Welcome!) click HERE if you want to listen to my 11-part podcast about egg freezing, a diary of my own *adopts American accent* ‘journey’ through the process, plus an examination of the industry as a whole, chats with other women who’ve been through it, chats with fertility doctors, chats with a sperm donor, chats with an egg donor and so on. I think it’s the piece of work I’m most proud of, and I still get messages from women about it every week. Even one yesterday from a woman who’s had a difficult time with freezing and thawing, and said there aren’t that many resources out there about it, or at least about the realities of the process.

Might make a nice break from Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell on Trump, anyway?