13. Crumpets

It's February. The year is yet young, and so far all this feckless youth has had to offer us is long weeks of actual cold, leaden grey skies, nothing much to look forward to yet, too early for a holiday. Light at the end of the tunnel is provided by the occasional mild day, and the daily increase in birdsong. Red wine helps a bit, as does cashmere and the boxset of Cranford. But I'm not sure that one of the purest sources of comfort and pleasure in these times isn't the good old crumpet.

It's no good buying Tesco's own crumpets. They taste of feet. Assuming you're not so bored that you're prepared to make your own, the best crumpets are Warburton's. (Of course. Warburton's is a Yorkshire company, and most of the best things that aren't Irish come from Yorkshire.) It's important to toast them for a very long time, and I have to squish them a bit with my palm before they go in the toaster, or I get bits of crumpet stuck to the bars and end up running round the house with a broom turning off all the violently loud smoke alarms. But if you toast them til they are golden brown, they will absorb the most unlikely amount of butter. Please do not defile the experience by attempting to add jam, or any other condiment. If you want jam, eat toast. Or your own socks. The point of crumpets is thick, slightly crunchy doughy loveliness dripping lasciviously and totally unnecessarily with good salted butter. Try not to drip butter on the soft furnishings, and try not to stare at anybody in the vicinity who has yet to finish their crumpet. Most importantly, do not steal other people's crumpets and then attempt to brazen it out. Particularly if you own the only dog in the whole world who doesn't eat bread-type stuff.

There will come a point - in my experience it's usually mid-April - when the crumpet will start to lose its appeal. It is then that you had better hope that nearly four months of crumpet eating hasn't left you so fat you'll have to spend the summer in a kaftan.