From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 120)

Is there anything as warming as the smell of baking bread?

As a child, when my mother was unavailable, I spent my time either in the kitchen or exploring the grounds of our home. The wildest, most tangled bits were the best as no one could find me there. As for my schoolwork, being precociously intelligent, I always had it finished in a trice and easily outstripped all my tutors. The problem with teaching the young is, however highly you may have attained your first degree, the habit of teaching boys of between seven and eleven tends to dull first the spirit, then the wits. All boys are awkward in their own ways, and I was merely one of the more sanitarily awkward.

So, my point is that I find cooking therapeutic. I enjoy kneading dough. I don’t even imagine that I am pummelling the body of my enemy. No, I am lost in the chemical changes that the yeast is producing and focussed solely on getting the very best constancy. This is especially important for a cheese bread, or an egg-enriched dough such as brioche (ah, brioche - toasted with cinnamon and brown sugar - heavenly).

Perhaps it’s due to my work, which can be destructive, but I rather like creating something and then invigorating myself with it - that is, eating it. I am naturally a strategic thinker and I excel at interpreting patterns, both in codes and languages. I am not a painter, and I am not a writer - other than this succinct tome. Thus, I think the muse that inspires artists comes to life in my cooking. I am, if I have not already said, a superb cook. It also calms me. It fulfils in me a need that I do not think is met elsewhere in my life.

Sadly, the majority of the women that I have allowed into my life, have been very poor cooks. Of course, ladies of a certain class are not expected to cook. In my opinion this needs to change. To be unable to feed oneself, even in necessity, is quite ridiculous.

Alice tried and is the best of a bad bunch. She, at least, understands flavour and values good cooking. My goddaughter is a poor cook and content to be so. She has a lamentable taste for champagne but can, thankfully, recognise a decent wine. If she had been as completely devoid of palate as she is of directional sense, I fear I might have had to disown her, and that would have hurt me more than it would have hurt her.