June 17, 2011

michael brady


There is someone I know, or rather used to know, that I think about often.  We spent many a weekend together when I was at university and then when I moved to London.  He looked a bit like Leo Sayer and Alan Titchmarsh combined (and still does, as far as I can tell) and Colin Firth would probably play him in the story of his life.  We shared wine and food and cookies and ashtrays and a sense of humour, we played backgammon (I remember winning a lot) and I loved his oddball company, posh accent, and his curly hair.  His house was always freezing cold and I remember trying to warm a bottle of red wine on a lukewarm radiator in his Luton living room before drinking it anyway whilst sitting under a duvet.  He was there when I saw my first and only solar eclipse and we saw the dawn of this millennium together at his home in Cornwall.  In his own true style he put on quite the spread... and he wore a suit!

He liked to cook and whenever he came to visit he would bring cake.  I have been badgering him for a recipe for his Queen of Sheba chocolate cake for longer than is right (I did have it but I can't find it anywhere and I'm certain he's punishing me for losing it).  But one recipe (or receipt as he likes to call it) that I have is the one for his Luscious Lemon Cake - a better description doesn't exist.  I made it yesterday, and tweaked it slightly, but it was a good tweak (legal too, not like the additions we used to make to our cookies) and it was one he would approve of.

Over the years we have lost touch, although he's still around in cyberspace and of course it's not the same.  The memories of him and that part of my life are locked away in that museum of me, and in some ways that's where they belong, but I would love to share my life as it is today with him.  I still want that recipe and maybe if he's reading this, he might send it to me, although knowing him, he'll continue to keep it from me, because he'd think that would be funny.

Happy birthday Michael Brady.

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