The Toast Maker – Episode 22: The Plate That Waited artwork
Sleepbound Nights

The Toast Maker – Episode 22: The Plate That Waited

·3h 60m

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Includes mentions of FoodWeatherMention of LossAnimalsBeverages
The Toast Maker — Episode 22
By Eliza Hartley

Tonight's reading is free — and part one of every series stays free, always. Over 500 more, and every new one first, are on Sleepbound Premium.
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Our other two shows, if tonight's isn't quite what you were after:
→ Sleepbound — classic literature read slowly enough to fall asleep to: Apple Podcasts
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A cake under a tea towel was, she thought, one of the most comforting objects in domestic life. It said: there is a cake. The cake is here. The cake will be eaten. The snow is still falling on the morning of the shortest day. Iris is putting on lipstick for Tom's mother. Tom is carrying the cake.

Tonight, they walk Mary's chocolate cake through the village to Millfield Road — where Margaret has swept the path twice, the navy apron is on, and a plate that has been waiting ninety years is finally ready to receive it.

Mr Pritchard is already at the table. The beef is better than the one at Tom's twenty-first. And before the cake is cut, Tom says something about Mary.

Thanks for keeping this open for all of us. Sweet dreams.

— Ian & Alex

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