Fun With Cakes

(You can listen to the Tara radio documentary I made if you click on the relevant icon at the right hand side of this page.)

I had a wonderful time last Friday. I was an extra on an ad which extolled the deliciousness of a certain brand of cakes. Loads of us extras were in a room in a Dublin hotel. When we weren’t expressing (in a variety of ways) how wonderful the cakes were to camera we had some great chats. The fact that is was cake that brought us together pleased me. I genuinely like cakes. There is a cafe in Dublin called The Cake Cafe and it’s one of my favourite places for a cuppa.

I love the far ranging conversations that can occur with strangers when one is, theoretically, waiting around for something else to happen….to be ‘called’ for a shot etc. Spirituality, interior design, helpful insights into damp proofing, cakes and much more were discussed in a cosy, enjoyable way. It was, in a way, a ‘day out’. It was a bit weird and wonderful and also slightly boring in places…filming does tend to involve a lot of hanging around. But there is such a thing as therapeutic tedium. It was basically a day devoted to cake. (Many years ago I was a stand-in to Sinead Cusack on a film and that was also fun, though cake was not offered with such frequency.) Cakes also crop up in my novel ‘The Truth Club’.

‘Simple Pleasures’ are becoming more valued. I recently wrote an article about this subject. I talked with people who love cooking, storytelling, knitting and gardening. One person I interviewed is a fan of the website www.Knitty.com I haven’t knitted for ages. But I do feel tempted to buy some yarn and meet up with some of the pleasant sounding people who sit around knitting together in cafes…there might be cake there too!

Lots of love,

Grace