To. G.F.Odell, Esq, C.B.E.
Wampach Hotel.
Folkestone.
14th Sept 1950
Dear George
Kidney for breakfast, but no cookery book saves Harrod on Pressure. Well, well, a frying pan and an egg timer work wonders. The real difficulty is to avoid eating too much. There was a half pint of milk that looked like being spare, but I found the bottle of rennet, mixed at 110deg F and put in the cellar while the kidney was being inserted into the corpus vile, and collected a perfectly firm junket. Beginner’s luck.
I wonder if it occurred to you that while you were away I should discover a little of the much you do for me. It doesn’t pass wholly unnoticed. So far as food goes we are living better that at any time since war got us down; we have achieved greater variety and the phrase cooked to a turn is beginning to have meaning. Though I don’t see it I know that the cooking is preceded by tedious shopping, day in and day out. I am indeed rather distressed at the amount of time that are spending on me, and getting nothing out of it beyond the satisfaction of knowing that you can cook and run the house, a matter I should have been prepared to take for granted. But there are other things going on; papers being gathered together, indexed and stored; and books too. I believe you even hope presently to clear up the things I leave about faster than I can strew them around again. And you never get a thank-you any more than Aida did. But I do eat the stuff and strew some more papers. Does that pass for gratitude?
The weather is none too good for you but I hope you are getting out and seeing something. Don’t be mourning Aida all the time; she wouldn’t wish it; ‘No flowers, as little fuss as possible’. You took her to Folkestone when you had the chance, and you must not be too sorry that she could not wait for your retirement.
Now I must go home and experiment again.
Yours affectionately
Bert