snowy adven­tures

It’s the night before we go back “home,” what­ev­er that means, to Lon­don.  We are all run­ning around the house turn­ing Red Gate Farm back from a Christ­mas won­der­land to a plain old house, ready to wel­come us back in July.  This means tak­ing down the dec­o­ra­tions and car­ry­ing the two trees to the back mead­ow where they join their branch­less cousins of Christ­mases past, and hoover­ing up all the nee­dles from between the wide floor­boards, wash­ing all the sheets and mak­ing the beds fresh, clean­ing out the fridge and putting all the mice-tempt­ing comestibles from the pantry into a big plas­tic box to await sum­mer’s menus.

In short, it’s depressing.

So to reward myself for all my hard work, I’m going to show you all the fun we had over the past week, cram­ming all the impor­tant — well, almost all the impor­tant rela­tion­ships into a very short time, and even hav­ing a sur­prise or two.

There was New Year’s Eve din­ner here at home with Anne, David and Kate from “across the road.”  Four-cheese lasagne!

And bub­bly…

No hol­i­day at Red Gate Farm would be com­plete with­out a cel­e­bra­to­ry trip into the city, whether in the blis­ter­ing heat of an August after­noon or, as it was this time, nos­tril-shriv­el­ling sub­ze­ro tem­per­a­tures!  Nev­er mind, we saw FRIENDS!  Avery was reunit­ed with her beloved Cici from her baby­hood, and I was reunit­ed with their pug, who obvi­ous­ly wor­ships me.

Cici’s moth­er fed us a beau­ti­ful eggy, sausagey brunch dish and we fam­i­lies caught up with our busy lives as best we could in a short cou­ple of hours, try­ing to hear every­one’s news in entire­ly too lit­tle time.  How to squash the lives of three very accom­plished kids — an aspir­ing polit­i­cal his­to­ri­an (Avery), visu­al artist and film­mak­er (Cici) and pro­fes­sion­al ten­nis play­er (seri­ous­ly, Noah) into one morn­ing was impos­si­ble, but ter­ri­bly touch­ing, and nos­tal­gic, think­ing back to our long his­to­ry togeth­er.

I rushed from see­ing them to a slight­ly hys­ter­i­cal lunch at the Odeon for a “per­fect hang­over” brunch with my dear­est Alyssa, although nei­ther of us had hang­overs… fried cala­mari, french fries, French onion soup.  Most­ly an unbe­liev­ably lux­u­ri­ous two hours to spend togeth­er gos­sip­ing, rem­i­nisc­ing, try­ing to believe that the girls we intro­duced at age 2+ are near­ly 18…  And a momen­tary cud­dle with the — let me get this straight — “long-haired Teacup Chi­huahua” they’re babysit­ting over the hol­i­days.  Oh. Em. Gee.

Alyssa and I always ask each oth­er after our bian­nu­al get-togeth­ers, “Why does­n’t it ever feel as if any time has passed?”  I remem­ber so clear­ly our first meet­ing, when she dropped off her lit­tle Annabelle for one of Avery’s first play­dates, and the girls spent the after­noon shar­ing grilled cheese and step­ping into the care­ful­ly-planned bowls of beads I had laid out for them to make bracelets.  Much more fun to kick them around.  Hap­py mem­o­ries.  As Alyssa and I always remark after our times togeth­er, “There is noth­ing quite like OLD friends.”  They play a heart-warm­ing part in your life that no new, or even semi-old friends can.

Then onto a total­ly unex­pect­ed meet­up with my Lon­don best friend of years gone by, Becky!  In town for just a day with her eldest.  We met up at the Stan­dard Hotel at Chelsea’s Highline.

Worlds col­lid­ing!  Lon­don when our girls were lit­tle, Green­wich when they first moved back to the States, putting Avery on her first-ever alone flight to vis­it them in Char­lotte, their vis­it to us sev­er­al hot sum­mers ago for my moth­er’s birth­day…  I will nev­er be able to put into words the love that Beck­y’s fam­i­ly offered to us when we moved to Lon­don, the warmth and love and his­to­ry that bind our two fam­i­lies.  Spend­ing a cold late after­noon in Chelsea togeth­er, over cups of tea and hot choco­late, was heav­en on earth.

John’s mom left us.  There is always an incal­cu­la­ble void when her spe­cial brand of lis­ten­ing, appre­ci­at­ing, laugh­ter and fun leaves us.  The house felt very emp­ty when she was gone.

To con­sole her­self, Avery had her hair col­ored.  Why not, aged 17?  It looks glorious.

And then, it SNOWED.

The snow fell slow­ly and gen­tly overnight, too late for us to watch it.

In the morn­ing, the world was glit­tery, pow­dery, per­fec­tion.  John and I both had imme­di­ate flash­backs to our Mid­west­ern child­hoods full of snow that fell in Decem­ber and nev­er melt­ed until East­er.  We had the lux­u­ry, that Jan­u­ary morn­ing here at Red Gate Farm, of frozen perfection.

Noth­ing could real­ly pre­pare us for the absolute glossi­ness of the landscape.

How we thought back to last sum­mer and the hot, HOT day when Dave and John repaired the ancient mail­box­es, now crowned with snowy caps.

We slipped in vis­its to Mike, Lau­ren and beau­ti­ful Abi­gail, as a coda to their din­ner with us.  We man­aged a vis­it from Shel­ley, our beloved friend who cap­tured our hearts years ago when she adopt­ed Avery’s res­cue kit­ten Cap­tain Hast­ings… we spent an after­noon sled­ding on first Prick­ly Bush Hill…

And then, Horse Poo Hill.  Avery had some amus­ing upsets.

Remem­ber when you were a child and at the first sight of a snow­fall, you went out and STAYED out until your moth­er made you come home, and then your clothes were all stiff with snow and you could­n’t feel your toes or fin­gers?  That’s how we all felt.  We set­tled down in front of the fire, blue-flamed with the col­ored pine cones Jill gave me for Christ­mas, to enjoy hot choco­late spiked with can­dy canes, and Non­na’s Cap­puc­ci­no Cookies.

Non­na’s Cap­puc­ci­no Cookies

(makes about 4 dozen)

1 cup/226g but­ter, softened

1/2 cup/100g +2 tbsps/ sugar

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp freeze-dried coffee/espresso

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

1 cup/128g cake flour

1 cup/128g white flour

1/2 cup/64g mini choco­late chips

Cream but­ter till fluffy.  Add sug­ar and cream again.  Mix cof­fee, cocoa, cin­na­mon and salt in a small dish.  Add by small amounts to but­ter and sug­ar mix­ture and mix well.  Mix two flours, then add grad­u­al­ly to but­ter and sug­ar mix­ture.  Stir in chips with a spatula.

Divide dough into thirds and roll each third onto parch­ment paper in 1‑inch logs.  Chill 1 hour.  Bake at 350F/180C for about 8 min­utes, then cool on rack.

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

Jill and her fam­i­ly came for a last joy­ful, chaot­ic brunch with Rol­lie and Judy drop­ping in to say hel­lo, the dish­wash­er break­ing down, laun­dry loads over­flow­ing as we pre­pared to leave.

And final­ly, we had our last glimpse of hol­i­day Stillmead­ow, our cher­ished view across the road, the last before we must leave for our “real” lives across the pond.  It is almost impos­si­ble for me to believe that all these dear peo­ple, all these beau­ti­ful places, our expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries, will be here for us to recap­ture in July.  But they will.

Next post: the fresh school term in Lon­don!  Hap­py New Year, all!