a fes­ti­val of Thanksgiving

I know what you’re think­ing: they’ve been gone only six months and they’ve already for­got­ten the place­ment of major hol­i­days on the cal­en­dar! No, no, don’t panic. Since Amer­i­can Thanks­giv­ing means noth­ing here, but it would seem that the impulse to insti­tu­tion­al­ize grat­i­tude is uni­ver­sal, in spring there is a Thanks­giv­ing, although it’s called Sum­mer Thanks­giv­ing. Now I don’t know if it’s nation-wide, but King’s Col­lege observes it and that’s good enough for me.

So above here is Avery with her beloved Mrs Bick­ley, who just seems to love her to pieces and in con­se­quence, we love Mrs Bick­ley. And the proud Form Four con­tin­gent of Avery, Sophia and Anna, for once not try­ing to beat up on Anna’s long-suffering lit­tle sis­ter Ellie. Although in gen­eral, as far as self-defense goes, my money’s on Ellie!

To cel­e­brate this fes­ti­val, the girls have been work­ing long and hard on a musi­cal per­for­mance, held at the most ele­gant church you can imag­ine: a John Nash cre­ation called All Souls’, Lang­ham Place. Directly across the road from the church is the Lang­ham Hotel where Avery and I tried to have tea one day after school, early in our stay, but it was host­ing a pri­vate party and we ended up at Claridge’s (noth­ing to sneeze at!). There was a jolly, jovial cler­gy­man, the Rev­erend Mark Meynell, who deliv­ered a very nicely bal­anced address, designed to appeal to the girls’ sense of jus­tice: if you give some­body some­thing, the some­body should say thank you. So he pointed out all the good things God had given us, cul­mi­nat­ing in his only child, and the chil­dren were impressed. And a clever touch, too: if we for­get to say thank you, there is always for­give­ness and a sec­ond chance. I think it’s a lovely sen­ti­ment. Forms Four, Five and Six were seated on the giant stage-like altar area when the par­ents started fil­ing in, and I felt very, very happy to know so many peo­ple, so much thanks to Becky who has been so gen­er­ous with her friends, not just in Avery’s and Anna’s Form Four, but Ellie’s Form One, which along with my read­ing to the gulls gave me a warm sense of belong­ing that has been long enough in com­ing. So thank you, Becky.

The gulls were, one and all, try­ing might­ily to look a com­bi­na­tion of dig­ni­fied, proud, pious and well-behaved. The sight of over 100 gulls in their plaid dresses, knees crossed, hands folded, was so dif­fer­ent from what our expe­ri­ence of school has ever been that I felt quite teary! Susan, Sophia’s mother, had gone out for lunch with me before­hand, and she said, “Bring on the tis­sues,” so we each clutched one just in case. Good thing, too, because once the organ began to play and the chil­dren to sing their “Lit­tle Latin Melody,” it was pretty touch­ing. The senior choir, made up of Forms Five and Six, were remark­ably accom­plished (to use Jane Austen’s favorite phrase!), all singing in tune and with expres­sion. Each group stood up to sing, and then sat down again in per­fect uni­son, but no clap­ping! I am going to file an offi­cial objec­tion. OK, it’s in a church. But to lis­ten to all those four-year-old angelic voices singing “Hello, Mr Sun,” and not reward them with some applause was very hard! The Eng­lish accents, too, and the pitch of their tones, and the sheer num­ber of lit­tle peo­ple singing, made it very, very enjoy­able and painfully sweet. I had heard Avery rehears­ing the var­i­ous songs many times over, and I have to con­fess I didn’t stop at any point to think that she was awfully cute. But Avery times 18 in an enor­mous his­tor­i­cal church filled with flow­ers was very affect­ing. “This is a lovely wuhld…”

And the read­ings! Two Form Six gulls had been cho­sen to read extremely seri­ous and rather puni­tive pas­sages from some­thing or other, and the grav­ity and per­fec­tion of their deliv­ery was some­thing to be proud of. Then when all the girls sang together, there were also orches­tral accom­pa­ni­ments: sev­eral gulls includ­ing Ava played their recorders, and Anna and oth­ers their vio­lins, and Avery and some of her friends mys­te­ri­ous per­cus­sion instru­ments. From his van­tage point as father of a Form Six girl, my friend Tony hissed from the row behind me, “What’s Avery got, a pep­per grinder?” Sure enough, it was a very weird object, but it must have been pro­duc­ing appro­pri­ate sounds because Avery looked quite happy. Every time I caught her gaze, how­ever, she removed all traces of smile and put on what John and I call her “pony face”: com­plete concentration.

Just lovely. Susan and Becky and I gave the kids flow­ers, and then it was arranged that I would bring them all home for a play­date, which is just now wind­ing down. Wish you could all have been here. Tomor­row will hold two momen­tous occa­sions: the First Grand­par­ent Visit (John’s mom!), and the annual All-School Pho­to­graph. So Avery is being forced into a bath so as to look the part of the clean, well-pressed school­girl, while a gar­licky tomato sauce sim­mers on the stove. I think I’ll toast some lit­tle baguette rounds as well and spread them with a fan­tas­tic goat cheese from the Royal Wind­sor Food Fes­ti­val. Are you tempted to come stay? We’ll pay John’s mom to do a good tes­ti­mo­nial and then the vis­its can come flood­ing in.