We’re sit­ting back, hands folded over stom­achs more than sat­is­fied with John’s first proper din­ner since his return from Ire­land. Cream of mush­room soup with home­made chicken stock, grilled salmon with steamed rice, roasted car­rots and corian­der, and steamed arti­chokes with the best vinai­grette: mus­tard, a tiny hint of mayo, chilli oil and lemon juice. We are surfeited.

John’s back! I warned Avery that his flight would get in too late for her to stay up to wel­come him, so she had just gone to bed when we heard that most unusual of sounds in dark­est Ham­mer­smith: an idling taxi! I sim­ply knew it was him. Threw up the win­dow (one of my mother’s favorite expres­sions) and stuck my head out and there he was, shades of his many hun­dreds of returns from busi­ness trips, haul­ing suit­case and brief­case from the dark innards of the cab, look­ing up joy­ously to see me. “I’m HOME!”

Well, just look at these two pho­tographs. The Hon­or­able Desmond Guin­ness, host of one of the Geor­gian Society’s evenings dur­ing John’s Irish adven­ture, at his coun­try pile. First in 1963, the year of John’s birth, and the sec­ond, this past year, these pho­tos were taken. How the bril­liance of genet­ics shines through, over 45 years! The blue glow of his aris­to­cratic eyes undimmed, the intel­lec­tual gen­eros­ity as intense as ever. What a fam­ily, form­ing the Geor­gian Soci­ety to save all these build­ings John loves so dearly. He had a mar­vel­lous, unusual, note­wor­thy time with all his fel­low devo­tees of Geor­gian archi­tec­ture. The first of many such adven­tures, we hope!

We are so glad to be reunited. How were we ever so accus­tomed to his many absences, more fre­quent than his times at home? But of course we could get used to it all over again, if he found the right job and was happy doing it. Avery and I sur­vived quite well, if miss­ing the smoothly oiled machine that is two par­ents on duty! Heaven for­bid, we had to take pub­lic trans­port all over the place, as I absolutely refuse to drive our lovely Cinque­cento until I have a proper dri­ving license. As many of you know, I have an unfor­tu­nate his­tory of a mas­sive and nearly fatal traf­fic acci­dent almost 20 years ago, and it was but a mir­a­cle that I wasn’t thrown in jail THAT time. I really can’t revisit it. So with­out John, Avery and I jumped on more buses and tubes than we nor­mally do, and walked in many rain­storms to achieve our goals. Fair enough, we got where we needed to go.

The only true adven­ture in our time alone was Mon­day evening, when I had double-booked Avery’s skat­ing les­son and my own vol­un­teer time at a school event, at pre­cisely the same time. I racked my brains for a likely mother to whom I could say, “Wouldn’t your daugh­ter love to accom­pany Avery to her skat­ing les­son, on the the­ory that two lit­tle girls alone are safer than one?” My imag­i­na­tion failed.

So I posed it to the girl her­self. “Would you rather skip your skat­ing les­son, or get to it your­self, and back home, in a taxi?” She con­sid­ered this and then decided she was more than equal to the task. “Don’t worry, Mommy! I’ll be fine. Who would dare to kid­nap me? It’d be like Clue.” She assumed a dra­matic stance with her skate bag. “Mr Cab­man, in a black taxi… with a SKATE BLADE.”

So I put her, my heart in my mouth, into a taxi, in a dri­ving rain­storm, pitch dark. I stuck my head in the win­dow as the dri­ver let it down. I made severe eye con­tact with him, gave him the address. “No wor­ries, love,” he said cheer­fully, so I smiled grimly, handed Avery in, repeated all the instruc­tions about pay­ment, tip, her skat­ing ticket, pay­ing her instruc­tor, where to get the return cab, the address of the school… I was utterly exhausted as I slammed the door to, and walked to school, mak­ing an emer­gency phone call to my friend Annie as I went. “I think I’m hav­ing a panic attack…” Annie was, as one expects from such an expe­ri­enced mother, calm. “It had to hap­pen, she’ll be home safe and sound, she can call me if she needs me.” Right. All true.

I stag­gered into the school, wet and upset. There is a great British state­ment from WWII, “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Of course. There is also, now in the 21st cen­tury, a follow-on slo­gan appear­ing on cof­fee mugs and com­puter mouse pads. “Now Panic and Freak Out.” I decided on a sort of mid­way ground, and hung up my coat, greeted the cater­ing man­ager, the High Mis­tress, the admin­is­tra­tion liai­son, and promptly con­fided in every­one. “She’s on her first taxi ride alone…” Loads of hand-holding and con­fi­dences in turn. Every­one understands.

Well, need­less to say, two hours later, hav­ing pushed wine and snacks and wis­dom on the new par­ents who were there for their parent-teacher con­fer­ences, I looked up to see Avery walk­ing in, safe and sound. No Panic and Freak Out needed! She dropped her skate bag, her home­work bag. “She’s here!” sev­eral moth­ers shouted in muted tones. “As you see,” Avery inclined her head, qui­etly con­fi­dent, as befits the one in our rela­tion­ship who has no clear mem­o­ries of child­birth and so can be quite cavalier.

Well done. Well done on your inde­pen­dence, Avery! And do you know what the child said? “Well done, you, Mommy, I think it was harder for you.” Sigh.

The only thing a mother can do on such an occa­sion is fill her oven at 5 p.m with the fol­low­ing, and know she’ll walk into a fra­grant home three hours later, with din­ner on the table in a thrice.

Upside-Down Slow-Roast Chicken
(serves 4 with soup leftovers)

1 large chicken, spatch­cocked
3 tbsps but­ter
1 large white onion, quar­tered
5 cloves gar­lic, peeled
3 tbsps olive oil
sea salt and pepper

In a large bak­ing dish lined with foil, place the chicken, rubbed all over with the but­ter, breast DOWN. Trust me, the breast will not dry out, even if the fin­ished prod­uct is less than elegant-looking. Spatch­cock­ing means, of course, sim­ply remov­ing the back­bone and flat­ten­ing the chicken.

Scat­ter the onion and gar­lic all round, then sprin­kle every­thing with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Place in a slow oven, 120C, 240F. You should also place in the same oven a foil-wrapped pack­age of small whole beets, or parsnips, or but­ter­nut squash. Any­thing of a root veg­etable nature will take to this method of cooking.

Come home three hours later to… din­ner. I promise.

*****************

You will enter the house, your heart (my heart) still beat­ing slightly too fast from what­ever trauma has kept you from home dur­ing those lovely hours of 5–8. Your head will lift, your nose sniff like a cat’s, your child will say some­thing like, “Aren’t you clever to have din­ner cook­ing while we were out!” You will cut some French bread and put out some but­ter. The chicken will fall apart when you try to turn it over, but be sure to snag some of the crispy, salty skin from the car­cass before you begin to take the chicken apart. Eat that skin WITH­OUT APOL­OGY, as my best writer friend Lau­rie Col­win would say. You did all the work: you deserve it.

Well, strictly speak­ing, no one did much work this time. But just for gen­eral prin­ci­ples, you eat that skin.

Once you’ve plucked enough chicken from the bones to serve you as din­ner, driz­zle it all with the cook­ing juices and tuck in. On the side you’ll have what­ever lovely roasted veg­eta­bles you stuck in the oven. And when you’re fin­ished, throw every­thing left­over into a large stock­pot, cover it all with water, and sim­mer it for soup.

Well, dear read­ers, the rain pounds com­fort­ingly out­side my Lon­don bed­room win­dow. I am not wet. This after­noon I was wet, tak­ing Avery and her friend over the Ham­mer­smith Bridge to their “Drake” rehearsals. Then I was wet again, food shop­ping in the High Street, and wet again as I walked home from the bus stop. But now? I am dry and cozy, my fam­ily is home safely from parts dis­tant and parts just new and scary. I can relax.

Just a word to say, for many dis­parate rea­sons both per­sonal and pub­lic, our minds are on the armed forces tonight, under so much pres­sure in so many places, for so many rea­sons, with so many fam­i­lies miss­ing them and mourn­ing them. We appre­ci­ate that it’s not a choice for so many of you to be where you are, and that in many ways our safety in cozy, lovely Lon­don (and the rest of the world) is due to the scary lives you are liv­ing. Thank you, on Remem­brance Sun­day. We will wear our poppies.

I real­ized that I left you all with the impres­sion that our Devon sojourn was occu­pied merely with sit­ting around read­ing Daphne Du Mau­rier books (check), eat­ing (check) and otters (check). But even more over­whelm­ing, per­haps, was Avery’s first expe­ri­ence with wild ponies.

Wild, you ask? What does this mean?

Wild means, you’re on the quiet road between Sir Fran­cis Drake’s beloved home Buck­land Abbey (gor­geous, as you see above, Avery pos­ing reluc­tantly, “Drake the Musi­cal” already occu­py­ing far too much of her time) and the hor­rid post­war town of Ply­mouth. You’re ask­ing idly, “Where do you think we ought to pull off in order to find these wild…” “PONIES!” Avery says with awe, point­ing. “PONIES?” we all ask, in dis­be­lief. There was no hunt­ing and find­ing to be done. There were sim­ply ponies, shaggy, fat, friendly and lovely, approach­ing us from all direc­tions. Dear read­ers, we were naughty and brought them count­less car­rots in the pock­ets of our Bar­bour coats. Our law-abiding daugh­ter was shiv­er­ing in her Welling­tons not with cold, but with fear that some park atten­dant would find us and arrest us. “Maybe we’re not sup­posed to feed them…” she moaned in inde­ci­sion. More and more of the crea­tures fol­lowed us about. “You can’t tell me we’re the first peo­ple who’ve fed them,” I argued. “They’re very assertive!”

Sure enough, a park atten­dant did approach us to ask what we were doing. “Pet­ting the ponies and giv­ing them a car­rot or two,” John said blithely, his pock­ets weighted down with treats. “Oh, well, that’s all right, then, as long as you’re expe­ri­enced around horses. They can be quite pushy!”

Impos­si­bly mag­i­cal to find these gor­geous ani­mals qui­etly eat­ing grass, just behind a shrub, or walk­ing along a path in twos and threes, run­ning to us as we approached. My favorite, I admit, was this white lovely, a bit shy at first, but very happy to accept car­rot pieces after a moment or two. Avery was speech­less with delight at the crea­tures’ sim­ply appear­ing to us. How on earth do they sur­vive in win­ter, we wondered?

These days, in the wild with ponies and car­rots, seem a mil­lion years ago now, hav­ing set­tled into two weeks of the long win­ter term of school. Keep­ing Avery’s nose to the homework/musical/riding/skating grind­stone seems one long utter­ance of “Are you ready to…” But life is in the con­trasts, is it not?

Speak­ing of which, our house­hold of three has been reduced, for the next four days, to just two (and any num­ber of cats, of course). John flew off this after­noon for his Dublin adven­ture, and so it’s just Avery and me. We feel quite bereft, happy as we are together, as if a limb were miss­ing. John brings such a feel­ing of secu­rity, joy, con­fi­dence and energy, sadly appre­ci­ated only too lit­tle until he’s gone. We shall not take him for granted any­more, once he’s home! To offer you all a bit of secu­rity, I shall post an old favorite recipe, one I would back against any­thing more expen­sive, more sophis­ti­cated, more intri­cate. Roast your­self a chicken, enjoy it for din­ner, then plunge all the car­cass into a huge pot of water, sim­mer it for two hours with some car­rots and onions. Strain it, leave it in the fridge overnight and next morn­ing, scrape off the fat layer. Then…

Creamy Red Pep­per Soup
(serves 4)

3 tbsps but­ter
6 red pep­pers, cut up roughly
1 white onion, quar­tered
4 cloves gar­lic, cut up roughly
a good dol­lop Marsala or brandy
chicken stock to cover veg­eta­bles
2 tsps dried thyme, or 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup sin­gle cream or creme fraiche

Melt but­ter in a heavy saucepan and saute pep­pers, onion and gar­lic until slightly soft­ened. Add Marsala and sim­mer high till alco­hol is reduced by half. Add chicken stock to cover veg­eta­bles, and sprin­kle in thyme. Sim­mer high until red pep­pers are soft, per­haps 20 min­utes. Blend with a hand blender, then push through a sieve into a clean pan. When ready to serve, heat again and whisk in cream.

*****************

This is the best soup I have ever made, and pos­si­bly the best THING I have ever made. I have served it to dozens and dozens of peo­ple, and every­one: chil­dren, babies, old peo­ple, veg­e­tar­i­ans (if you make it with veg­etable stock), EVERY­ONE sim­ply sighs with delight.

So tonight we had this soup, for com­fort with no John (who rang to tell us he was at a per­for­mance of Vivaldi’s Four Sea­sons!). With a nice fil­let of beef in a mush­room sauce, some mashed pota­toes, and a pile of green beans, you can con­vince your­self that all is right with the world. If only you had a wild pony in your gar­den, says Avery. Fair enough.

It’s true: after a mar­ried life of Extreme Sep­a­ra­tion for many years, I have got so used to hav­ing my beloved right at home that his upcom­ing absence is wor­thy of a blog post. He is tak­ing him­self off to Dublin, as in Ire­land, on Sat­ur­day for four whole days.

Alone.

Well, he will be join­ing a group, of like-minded devo­tees of Irish Geor­gian Archi­tec­ture, for a series of learned lec­tures (is there any other kind), tours of houses nor­mally closed to the pub­lic, plates of indi­gestible Irish food and who knows what sort o’ mayhem.

We’ve had many lively dis­cus­sions among our friends as to the prob­a­ble nature of his fel­low sym­posi­asts. I vote for Lit­tle Old Ladies who thought gar­dens were included in the tour. Annie says, wet-blanket-like but undoubt­edly right, Old Men Who Always Wanted To Be Archi­tects But Inher­ited Father’s Accoun­tant Firm. John’s hold­ing out for A-level stu­dents (as in, age 17, and GIRLS) who just can­not be torn away from a Robert Adam ceil­ing and think 46 is actu­ally the new 28. I say, in for a penny in for a pound, and he should be pre­pared for any even­tu­al­ity. When I think of the social con­se­quences of my own sweet lit­tle Devon sojourn with food writ­ers a year or so ago… life­long din­ner com­pan­ions and house­guests when­ever I’m lucky enough for them to arrive in Lon­don! Birth­day wishes for my small daugh­ter! Could the same be pos­si­ble with John’s adventure?

No.

He filled out the “extra sup­ple­ment for sin­gle room” with far too much glee, I fear. New friend­ships will have to leap out at him (and they will, since he is quite irre­sistible) in order for any­thing much to tran­spire. But I thought, “Hey, there might be some­one on the tour who is in des­per­ate need for a finan­cial genius to run his estate.” As in pos­si­bly the man host­ing the first night’s din­ner at his… cas­tle?

A mur­der is a def­i­nite pos­si­bil­ity. The cater­ing com­pany hired to feed the sym­posi­asts has, on its staff, the hid­den, never-acknowledged heir to the entire estate of The Cas­tle, and he/she (the dis­guise is really com­plete) has lived his/her entire life wait­ing for revenge, in the form of an inher­i­tance. One person’s por­tion of wild funghi risotto is not what it seems…

We shall miss him. Four days of my being respon­si­ble for the entire house­hold (con­sist­ing of one quite inde­pen­dent child and four cats, admit­tedly). I shall have to get her to rid­ing, skat­ing, act­ing, musi­cal rehearsals, school on Mon­day AND Tues­day… not to men­tion laun­dry, meal prepa­ra­tion, sym­pa­thetic lis­ten­ing to all issues… oh wait. I shall be doing pre­cisely what all my friends with­out at-home hus­bands are doing EVERY day.

I know I can do it. And think how enter­tain­ing he’ll be on Tues­day when he gets back. Unless he can’t make bail for that murder…

It’s hap­pened: Avery is a teenager. Yes­ter­day was the big day, and I must say I scru­ti­nized her closely this after­noon when she returned from school, and dare I say it? She’s just the same. Lovely and loyal, friendly and stead­fast, enter­tain­ing and intel­li­gent, alto­gether some­one we are thor­oughly proud to call our own.

We spent the after­noon at Fort­num and Mason for ice cream, then a friend came home with her to do home­work (out­ra­geously, the school staff did not honor her birth­day by with­hold­ing any assign­ments), then the requested birth­day din­ner: creamy red pep­per soup, and riga­toni with a sauce of toma­toes, ricotta and pine nuts. Presents galore, mostly books! And charms for her bracelet, and a gor­geous vel­vet skirt from my par­ents… today a lovely out­fit arrived from my sis­ter and her fam­ily, so she’s thor­oughly kit­ted out now, in appro­pri­ately fes­tive, 13-year-old-friendly wear.

I spent all day yes­ter­day in my usual Avery-birthday fog. I remem­bered all day where I was 13 years ago, des­per­ately walk­ing the island of Man­hat­tan, try­ing to get used to labor pains and avoid­ing the hos­pi­tal like it was the sev­enth cir­cle of hell (it came pretty close, even­tu­ally). Finally pick­ing up that suit­case with one tiny out­fit and my tooth­brush and tooth­paste in it, and bring­ing her home the very next day with guests for din­ner! How lucky we feel to have her. Thank you, dear girl, and here’s to another warm and won­der­ful year together.

Avery is in a stu­por of post sugar-high, but not as high as her hair. Yes, her first visit to a hair salon, to emerge a mind-numbing hour and a half later as… Holly Golightly. A dress from Tesco, a tiara from Shep­herds Bush Mar­ket, a cig­a­rette holder and gloves from some skeevy online cos­tu­mier, all com­bined for quite the best Hal­loween cos­tume ever. There were fully five salon employ­ees hov­er­ing around her and her entirely silent hairdo cre­ator Leno, pro­vid­ing bobby pins and hair spray at the drop of a hat. Passersby on the pave­ment stopped to look in the win­dows. One of the styl­ists said hes­i­tantly to me, “Do you know that man out there? Because he’s wav­ing like crazy,” and there was John, dri­ving by in the Cinque­cento to pick us up, late as we were in the ser­vice of Avery’s hair.

On to a fab­u­lous Hal­loween party at the home of one of Avery’s school friends, a plate­ful of the BEST lasagne from Ottolenghi (I am not mak­ing lasagne again until I fig­ure out exactly how to repli­cate it: car­rots, for one thing), washed down with Moet et Chan­don. And then chap­er­on­ing the trick or treat­ing in Kens­ing­ton, quite the posh­est neigh­bor­hood I per­son­ally have ever can­vassed in search of mind­less amounts of high fruc­tose corn syrup.

There was a four-story house cov­ered from top to bot­tom by a 40-foot square black spi­der! There was a path­way cov­ered over by arbors of trail­ing ivy in blaz­ing autum­nal col­ors, flanked on either side by gor­geously carved pump­kins (never mind my usual child­ish efforts, I enjoy it!). Carv­ings of galleons in full sail, cats with arched backs, fly­ing ghosts, some in that impos­si­bly sophis­ti­cated method that my sis­ter can pro­duce, where your knife does not fully pen­e­trate the pump­kin but skims across the sur­face so the can­dles glow from inside. Scream­ing crowds of tween­ers, lit­tle crowds of goggle-eyed tod­dlers clutch­ing at their par­ents’ hands, tiny hand­bag dogs dressed up as uncon­vinc­ing devils.

Back to the party for a homely and lov­ingly cre­ated old-fashioned party: Pin the Mould on the Pump­kin, bob­bing for apples, throw­ing apple peels to read the first ini­tial of the name of the man you will marry! Prizes and fairy cakes dec­o­rated with but­ter­flies, a sort of Lucky Dip in Jello, a class­mate as Puss in Boots, a witch in knee-high Fendi boots, and our own lit­tle Tru­man Capote heroine.

Avery’s now clos­eted in the bath­room, remov­ing her bobby pins. The entire world smells like hair spray. I’m wait­ing out­side in case her head falls off once the pins are all out. All’s right with the world. Happy Halloween!

Well, believe me when I say it is very tricky to limit myself to just these pho­tographs for my first Devon hol­i­day post. Every moment seemed wor­thy of an image. Can you imag­ine see­ing this lit­tle otter fel­low, and all his merry mates, in per­son? And the view from our cot­tage door, onto the epony­mous Pond of Pond Cot­tage… a tiny view into our evening sit­ting room, the Dairy perched high… but I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

My mother in law asks me to clar­ify from my last post that our cot­tage did indeed have elec­tric­ity! It was only my over­dra­matic sense of occa­sion that made me insist on one din­ner at the pic­nic table, and you would have laughed to see us hold­ing can­dles over our plates and try­ing to iden­tify bites of our sup­pers. “Hang on one minute, is this pork, or rice? This is DEF­I­NITELY a green bean…” My fam­ily was admirably tol­er­ant of me! But there was also a quar­ter moon to light our way, with proper nearly-Halloween clouds skid­ding across it, and enor­mous rustling red-leafed trees to block its light.

Pork Medal­lions with Sage, Mush­rooms and Creme Fraiche
(serves 4)

1 1/2 lbs pork fil­let, trimmed of all mem­branes and fat, sliced into 12 medal­lions
2 tbsps but­ter
16 sage leaves
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 shal­lot or 1/2 white onion, minced
12 medium mush­rooms of your choos­ing, sliced thick
2 tbsps Marsala wine, or Cal­va­dos or brandy
1 cup creme fraiche (half-fat works fine)
sea salt and black pep­per to taste

Melt but­ter in large skil­let until brown and drop in sage leaves in a sin­gle layer. Cook until crisp and set aside. Bring up heat to high and place pork in skil­let, again in a sin­gle layer. Brown on first side, then turn and brown on sec­ond side. The meat should still be quite raw on the inside. Remove to a plat­ter and keep warm.

Add gar­lic, shal­lot or onion and mush­rooms to skil­let and saute until mush­rooms give off juice. Pour in wine or Cal­va­dos or brandy and sim­mer high for a minute or so. Whisk in creme fraiche and lower heat to a very low light. Stir until beau­ti­fully creamy, then lower pork medal­lions into sauce in a sin­gle layer. Cook for about five min­utes, spoon­ing sauce over pork quite con­tin­u­ously. When the pork feels firm to the touch, it’s done. Sea­son and you’re ready.

Serve over steamed rice and crush the sage leaves over top. Sim­ply LUSCIOUS.

****************

I can­not con­vey in writ­ing the intensely cel­e­bra­tory aroma of this dish. It’s quite defin­i­tively autum­nal, with the faintly alco­holic sug­ges­tions and woodsy sage and lux­u­ri­ous cream. You will make this often, I’m quite sure, and I’ve had great suc­cess sub­sti­tut­ing veal escalopes and chicken breasts for the pork.

Pork is one of the sub­jects on which I am unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally evan­gel­i­cal. It is emphat­i­cally NOT meant to be “the other white meat” as our Amer­i­can lead­ers of indus­try would have you believe. A pig should not give white meat, any more than a baby cow should. Pork and veal should be rosy pink, reflect­ing the ani­mals’ happy, lively life in the out of doors, not a sad, crowded exis­tence in a ster­ile pen. So when you see pork in Amer­ica that’s pale and devoid of any char­ac­ter, don’t buy it. Buy chicken fil­lets if you want some­thing white and fat-free, but save your pork calo­ries for the real thing, pink and juicy.

With this I served my new favorite side dish, about which I’m thrilled because now I like green beans, and it is totally sim­ple! It is a sad fact of my taste buds that I can be fed almost any­thing as long as it’s tossed in but­ter and garlic.

Gar­licky Green Beans
(serves 4)

1/2 pound fine green beans, ends trimmed
2 tbsps but­ter
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
sea salt and black pep­per to taste

Bring water in a saucepan to the boil and plunge green beans into it. Boil high for about five min­utes or until a bean is cooked to your lik­ing. I like them still with a bite, but not hard. A good guide­line for that level of cooked­ness is that the water smells like green beans! Drain the beans and set aside in a bowl, cov­ered with another bowl, to keep the beans warmish.

Melt the but­ter in the same saucepan to save wash­ing up, and add the gar­lic. Cook very low until gar­lic is soft and then add the olive oil and salt and pep­per to taste. Keep the but­ter mix­ture warm until you’re ready to serve, then driz­zle over the beans and toss well. When serv­ing, be sure to bring up the lovely melted gar­licky but­ter with a spoon.

****************

So this is what fed us one gor­geous evening at our house, which had the ambi­ence of a dolls house, every­thing just barely large enough for John to fit (although he had to duck in the door­ways). The front step seemed to be cry­ing out for our Wellies to rest upon its stones, although Avery was com­pletely grossed out by a lit­tle pal who had made his way into her boot, lying on its side overnight: a giant slug!

The pond held a fam­ily of mal­lard ducks who appeared each morn­ing and evening but flew off squawk­ing furi­ously if we tried to feed them bread crusts. High above the prop­erty perched a sim­ple per­fect, tiny cylin­dri­cal build­ing called The Dairy, which came with a key so we could explore. Under its pre­cise thatched roof we ducked inside, to find a room fur­nished with local Devon mar­ble in huge vats and trays lin­ing the walls, com­plete with a sys­tem of drainage into lead pans below. In the cen­ter was a mas­sive sort of font of more mar­ble, and we tried hard to imag­ine what the pur­pose was, exactly, of all these imple­ments. The win­dows above the work sur­faces were stained-glass and the walls made of tiles dec­o­rate with tiny green ivy leaves. I can’t describe the time­less seren­ity of this room, which in fact held sway over the entire property.

Above the dairy (very high into the land­scape by now, as you can imag­ine!) was a series of planned walks, through a ver­dant coun­try­side made up of an enchant­ing com­bi­na­tion of uncon­trolled foliage and metic­u­lous prun­ing. We had read in the his­tory of the prop­erty that since its incep­tion in 1810 (as a coun­try retreat for the Duchess of Bed­ford!) it had fallen into the hands of a fish­ing syn­di­cate (brown trout), and even later than that, been aban­doned entirely to be dis­cov­ered by the Land­mark Trust in 1985. Com­pletely under foliage! The LT crew dis­cov­ered, if you can imag­ine, entire BUILD­INGS under ivy and other climb­ing plants. Beyond the mas­sive actual struc­tures, they uncov­ered miles of pre­cise stone paths, benches and bridges, and even two caves, com­plete with sta­lac­tites. Magical.

Just off the gar­den path is the mag­nif­i­cent Hotel End­sleigh, orig­i­nally the manor house that presided over our lit­tle cot­tage for the Duchess. Tea there is not to be missed: sand­wiches of local ham and grainy mus­tard, rich egg may­on­naise, a Vic­to­ria Sponge cake that Avery rolled her eyes over in delight, dense brown­ies, fresh scones and clot­ted cream. The hotel was packed, as far as we could see, with the car park full of fancy cars (our lit­tle Min­now was quite eclipsed in size and stature!). But it was sep­a­rated from our prop­erty quite com­pletely, adding only a cozy atmos­phere of lux­ury, smok­ing chim­neys and ele­gant burn­ing tapers in the evening, when we passed by from our walks on the way home, along the rush­ing River Tamar, which sep­a­rates Devon from Corn­wall. So funny: on one of our dri­ves, we came to a sign, “Wel­come to Corn­wall.” “Oh, goody, now I can start read­ing ‘Rebecca,’” Avery rejoiced, pick­ing it up from the car seat. “We’re back in Devon,” we said a few min­utes later. “Good­bye, ‘Rebecca,’” she said.

Evenings of aro­matic log fires, chats with my two favorite peo­ple, card games, hilar­i­ous attempts at a Sher­lock Holmes game acquired at a local flea mar­ket! All with a back­ground of soup sim­mer­ing (not a bone or scrap escapes my indus­try, and we wal­lowed in creamy red pep­per soup, mush­room soup with fresh thyme, and the clear­est, sim­plest chicken broth with plenty of car­rots and cel­ery). And hours of time to read. Avery plowed through all her books, all my books, all the books that came with the house, reach­ing a grand total of over thirty by mid­week. “There has to be a book­shop nearby!” she wailed, and this we found in dar­ling nearby Tavi­s­tock (don’t tell Avery, but there’s a statue of… Sir Fran­cis Drake there).

The Book­stop has some­thing for every­one includ­ing a mas­sive children’s sec­tion and a cafe. Tavi­s­tock is graced as well by a per­fect Dick­en­sian del­i­catessen and all-round good­ies shop called N.H Cre­ber, Qual­ity Gro­cer. I loved it any­way, but some­one with a sweet tooth would go quite mad among the bis­cuits, cakes, choco­lates and jams. And Scotches, don’t even get me started! Many I had never heard of and cer­tainly could not afford. But I could afford some of their duck liver pate, and Avery suc­cumbed to chocolate-studded short­bread. A glo­ri­ous place, as you see! I also made a foray into Palmer’s butcher shop where I acquired sim­ply the most fla­vor­some smoked streaky bacon I have EVER eaten. One slice will sat­isfy any­one, with a fried egg on the side. On a sand­wich with Fred­er­ick­son toma­toes, I can only imag­ine. And here I pro­cured a lovely cheese called Cor­nish Yarg, now Avery’s hands-down favorite. “Describe it for me, what you like about it,” I inquired, and after some thought, she said, “It’s an unas­sum­ing lit­tle cheese, it’s just there to be enjoyed.” Creamy and simple.

And to give you a brief idea of the wildlife to be enjoyed, let me point you to the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Cen­tre (in Corn­wall!). I have rarely seen Avery so happy. “I want Anna, I want Anna!” she kept cry­ing, miss­ing her best friend who is obsessed with all things ani­mal. These endan­gered lit­tle crea­tures were every­where at the Sanc­tu­ary, and we arrived at feed­ing time, to see them leap for bits of fish thrown to them by the impas­sioned and delight­ful owner. “I know they look cute, and furry,” he warned, “but these lit­tle guys will take off a thumb from you before you can turn around. I’ve seen them take down a heron in 15 min­utes.” Lovely thought. He assured us we could see this fas­ci­nat­ing spec­ta­cle of the food chain in a Youtube video, but so far I have resisted the call.

I must love you and leave you with this mas­sive post, a paean to Devon and Corn­wall. Soon I shall tell you about the wild ponies we encoun­tered in Dart­moor and regale you with some sto­ries of cas­tles and stately homes nearby. Prob­a­bly the peo­ple you travel with will not be as full-up with Sir Fran­cis Drake as our child is (the musi­cal is only three weeks away), and so your visit to his home will be more peace­ful than ours, which included a run­ning com­men­tary on every­thing the dis­plays got wrong. Till then, if you sim­ply can’t live with­out more pho­tographs, try this. And make that pork dish: you won’t be sorry!

Hello, Lon­don, and good­bye misty, foggy, sweet­est Devon. A week of total iso­la­tion in a cot­tage of stone, sur­rounded by the wildest and most cul­ti­vated of ancient plants, per­me­ated with dusky smoke from a cozy fire­place, fed with roast chicken, mozzarella-stuffed meat­balls, pork medal­lions in a creamy sage and mush­room sauce (even if we couldn’t see a bite of THAT din­ner because the moon did not rise quite high enough!). Avery read twenty-five books, John took naps, I… did the dishes! A sus­tain­ing, chatty, sleepy week was had by all, punc­tu­ated by otters and wild ponies, a high tea worth remem­ber­ing, cas­tle tours and more than we ever wanted to know about a cer­tain Admi­ral Drake! “He’s stalk­ing me…” Avery moaned.

More on all this very soon, but tonight cel­e­brat­ing a reunion with my dar­ling friend Sam, who upon retir­ing has dis­cov­ered what it means to share his bath­room with the wash­ing machine. Moun­tains, my dears, moun­tains of dirty laun­dry. I’ve col­lapsed with an Arma­gnac and a good book and shall be back in the sad­dle tomor­row. I’ll be ready to tell you all you need to know about a cer­tain lit­tle pocket of Devon, Dart­moor, and a fam­ily hol­i­day. Nighty-night.

Ah, the last din­ner party before half-term hol­i­day begins tomor­row… the green beans steamed and then bathed in a gar­licky, lemony but­ter, the pota­toes, quar­tered, steamed and tossed in a very large saucepan con­tain­ing melted but­ter and hot olive oil, and loads of paprika. Yes, it’s more “Lick the Bowl Pota­toes” for Avery. All this accom­pa­nied by the Main Chance: chicken breasts with a pocket cut in, stuffed with moz­zarella wrapped in pro­sciutto and spinach, grilled expertly by John. Then, as you can see, a silly cheese­board to round out the night. A rocket salad with a fab­u­lous dress­ing of the oil from a jar of arti­choke hearts (renew, reuse, recy­cle!), mixed with mus­tard, bal­samic vine­gar, Fox Point Sea­son­ing and fro­mage frais… and some store­bought cookies.

How we all laughed: Keith and Annie, Emily and Geor­gia and Jonathan… dis­cussing hol­i­days upcom­ing and past shared, Keith advis­ing John in the grilling of the chicken, all the chil­dren troop­ing out into the dark, barely illu­mi­nated gar­den to “help” the tim­ing, as Annie and I tossed beans, stirred pota­toes, dressed the salad, watched the cats mean­der­ing in and about look­ing for fallen scraps. “There aren’t enough beans!” I wailed. “Just because I don’t like green beans, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t pro­vide enough for other peo­ple…” “Why did you make them, then?” John asks in all fair rea­son. “Because every­one else likes them.”

Annie and Keith jumped in. “I’d say ‘FHB,’ but we’re all fam­ily here so that won’t work,” said Annie. “FHB?” I asked. “Fam­ily Hold Back,” Keith elab­o­rates. Such is our “fam­ily” that then NO ONE took enough beans and there were enough for seconds!

We sat on in the can­dle­light, drink­ing wine and lis­ten­ing to dis­cus­sions of exams, Avery’s wild dreams of piglets in school wear­ing brown and blue woollen coats (don’t ask), and finally, “Gross Things My Chil­dren Have Eaten.” The win­ner? Jonathan’s foray as a tod­dler into what he glee­fully described to his mother as “mov­ing raisins.” WOODLICE. There’s child­hood in a Con­necti­cut farm­house for you! Mov­ing raisins.

We’ve had the last of our early autumn school rit­u­als: the last drop of the girls at “Drake”, watch­ing them run hell bent with their satchels fly­ing, kick­ing aside the fallen leaves, paus­ing at the zebra cross­ing to watch the oncom­ing boys, then dis­ap­pear­ing out of sight into the grounds of the boys’ school. I’m sure I looked like a stalker, sus­pended on the pave­ment, gaz­ing after them, watch­ing lit­tle girl­hood run away from me and around a cor­ner. Hard not to see it as a metaphor.

Then I’ve seen Avery and Jamie to their last reg­u­lar Fri­day skat­ing out­ing till after the “Drake” fes­tiv­i­ties… “please take my glasses, Mommy, and here’s my skate bag, and could I have ice cream?”, plus the scream­ing ban­ter of count­less teenage cou­ples, and birth­day par­ties filled with shout­ing chil­dren descend­ing on the adja­cent bowl­ing alley… but look­ing through the muddy glass at Avery mak­ing spec­ta­cles shapes around her eyes: “watch us!” So I did watch, a new jump, a new spin.

And yes­ter­day drop­ping her at act­ing class, watch­ing her do the “flick,” as her high mis­tress has named the ges­ture of hair over shoul­der. How many more days will we be wel­come, drop­ping her off any­where? That prospect should shut up my whinge­ing about the skat­ing rink, but of course I enjoy the whinge­ing as much as I do the drop­ping off.

At least I enjoy SOME­THING. How many hours of the past two days have I devoted to the follow-up novel to Julie/Julia? Too many. And as far as I can tell, the author enjoyed pre­cisely NOTH­ING of what she describes. The book tells the tale of the dis­so­lu­tion of her mar­riage due to her infi­delity, and con­cur­rently her train­ing as a butcher. Actu­ally she did pos­si­bly enjoy her fel­low butch­ers, but in describ­ing her work, she cured me of any desire what­so­ever to become a butcher, and I had had a bit of a desire, I admit. Right now I’m suf­fer­ing from two burns on my hands from touch­ing the oven ele­ments in a care­less moment, but I can tell you that that’s NOTH­ING com­pared to the cuts, blood– and fat-filled scrapes that attend butcher­dom. And the COLD.

In any case, I did get all the way through Cleav­ing, and I can report, as a very old per­son, that it reads much like a revis­ited novel by… Erica Jong! Isn’t that a name from the past! Do you sup­pose Julie Pow­ell has ever even heard of Erica Jong, much less read “Fear of Fly­ing,” pretty much the inven­tion of bor­der­line over-personal pornog­ra­phy? And Erica accom­plished this in 1973, when women’s lib­er­a­tion in every way, espe­cially sex­ual, was a brand-new topic, and as such sort of a high to read about, at the time.

I think there’s room in per­haps every three gen­er­a­tions or so for a novel full of self-indulgent for­ays into a given person’s sex­ual adven­tures, merely for the sake of telling the reader about them. And between D.H Lawrence and Erica Jong, we’re cov­ered for the time being. I wanted to care about Julie Powell’s exploits, but I didn’t. I felt that both in how she lived and how she wrote about liv­ing, she was giv­ing me self-indulgence for its own sake, and some­thing in my Mid­west­ern good-girl upbring­ing led me to say to myself, “If she spent just one minute think­ing about any­one but her­self, she’d be in a bet­ter place.”

If I thought she’d enjoyed any­thing very much: her mar­riage, her blog, her affair, her COOK­ING, if she’d rev­elled in the excess and the out­law­ness, I’d have enjoyed the book. But I don’t think she did. Don’t mis­un­der­stand me: I can get my mind around tales of unhap­pi­ness, infi­delity, soul-searching, tor­ment. But I want to think the teller cared even more than I did about grow­ing from her expe­ri­ences, and I don’t think she did. I wish I did under­stand her moti­va­tion in telling the story. And I feel sorry for both her hus­band and her lover.

And I STILL can’t under­stand how to bone a duck.

Off we go, then, tomor­row after­noon, for our autumn break in the Eng­lish coun­try­side. We’ll have our tiny car packed to the gills with the usual: Welling­ton boots, books on tape, soup blender, tealight can­dles, books galore, Scotch, hot water bot­tles. I’ll see you next Monday!

Spinach, Moz­zarella and Prosciutto-Stuffed Chicken Fil­lets
(serves 8)

8 bone­less chicken fil­lets, well-trimmed
about 10 spinach leaves per fil­let
3 pro­sciutto slices per fil­let
1 thick slice buf­falo moz­zarella per fil­let (3 whole balls of cheese)
24 tooth­picks (called “cock­tail sticks” in Eng­land if you’re shopping)

With the fil­let lying on its side on a cut­ting board, care­fully cut a pocket length­wise along, tak­ing care not to cut all the way through to the back (but it’s not a dis­as­ter if you do).

Lay two pro­sciutto slices on the cut­ting board and pile on spinach leaves, then lay on the moz­zarella slice and roll it up tightly. Wrap the third slice of pro­sciutto around the lit­tle pack­age to cover the ends. Tuck the whole pack­age inside the chicken fil­let and close up the gap as tightly as you can, with the toothpicks.

Grill over a medium heat for about 8 min­utes per side, or until the chicken is cooked through.