Sat. 15th Nov.

Worn out after watching Children in Need until late last night, we have long lie-ins and have a late breakfast of crumpets, bagels and muffins. By the time we’ve done this it’s practically time to take Sally into Faversham for her matinee performance. Having dropped her off, Nick, Paul’s mum Mollie and I head for Macknades, an amazing emporium of fruit, vegetables, delicatessen items and “fine foods”, on the edge of Faversham. I buy a packet of egg substitute produced by Orgran, some vegetarian jelly mix (no gelatine), some gorgeous garlic olives and some polenta flour. This last item is because I read a great recipe the other day, involving dipping slices of green tomato in - I think – egg and polenta flour, and frying. I thought I’d attempt some kind of variation on this with the egg substitute and different vegetables. I’ll let you know how it goes.

We skip lunch, as breakfast was so late, but have a drink and afternoon snack at the café at the Apple Craft Centre next to Macknades. Sadly they don’t do soya milk, so I sit and drink ginger beer whilst watching Nick tuck into chocolate cake and Mollie into a toasted teacake with butter.

I find out later that Sally and various cast members went to a café for late lunch between performances and she had baked potato with baked beans. As previously mentioned, she’s not that keen on beans, but I guess she didn’t have much choice. Such courage in the face of adversity.

Once home, Nick makes the jelly and then spends the next hour checking every ten minutes to see if it’s set.

Evening meal is stir-fried tofu and vegetables with noodles. It goes down well and some of us even have seconds. Jelly for pudding. Perfect.

Then we pile into the car to go and watch “Alice”. It’s very good and Sally’s Mad Hatter provides us with a good laugh (in the way it’s meant to!). In the interval I have dark chocolate and red wine. A perfect night out.

Back home, in celebratory mood, Paul disappears into the kitchen to whip up salsa and guacamole, so we have a late night snack of these with tortilla chips.

Sally is sad that “Alice” is over and I try to reassure her that life is still worth living.