an autumn to remember

How neglect­ful I have been of my pre­cious blog!

Believe me, I have cause.  Let me explain.

I feel that my feet have not touched the ground in three months.  Since late August, when the heat real­ly turned up under the cook­book — the COOK­BOOK! — I’ve been full-steam ahead get­ting it ready.  It all began with the graph­ic design, with my beloved Briony of Bournemouth, a long process toward perfection.

The job pro­ceed­ed through a fog of admin: I’ve become the proud own­er of an ISBN, and an importers’ license in both the US and the UK.  I’ve learned to com­pile an index (that one was near­ly the death of me).

I’ve approved the colour proofs, as you see above (THAT was an excit­ing day!) and seen the thrilling end of our Kick­starter campaign.

Very soon, yet anoth­er mile­stone will be achieved: the “ebook” will be uploaded to var­i­ous sites as a phe­nom­e­non to be read on Kin­dles, iPads and phones, believe it or not!  Tomor­row I’ll approve the cov­er, which will be ter­ri­bly excit­ing, with its biogra­phies, pho­tographs and blurbs.  It will feel very real, at that point.

And then it’s a wait­ing game.  The hol­i­days will come and we will set­tle our­selves com­fort­ably in the win­ter won­der­land of Red Gate Farm.  We will all put the book out of minds, as best we can, to wait for its arrival in Jan­u­ary.  A real book, to hold in our hands.

When­ev­er I have felt vague­ly, usu­al­ly very late at night, that I just can’t learn anoth­er thing, accom­plish anoth­er thing, I have been giv­en a gift of some kind, of encour­age­ment from my read­ers.  I have per­mis­sion from one read­er to share with you her feel­ings about the book.

“So many things have hap­pened since I first caught sight of your blog (way back in 2007). Numer­ous jobs, count­less flats and… oh, I was­n’t even mar­ried back then! I can hon­est­ly say that there aren’t many blogs I’ve fol­lowed for so long. But some­how, I always come back to yours — it’s like the sol­id ingre­di­ent amongst all the mov­ing parts of life. You have a way of writ­ing that draws peo­ple in. And ‘wow’ to all your recipes, includ­ing one lamb recipe from long ago that even my (now) hus­band can’t forget.

When I men­tioned I fund­ed a kick­starter cam­paign to get a cook­book, he knew straight away that it must have been writ­ten by “the lady with that blog that had the lamb recipe”. I haven’t cooked that dish for years! It obvi­ous­ly made an impact!

Like many back­ers, I look for­ward to receiv­ing the cookbook…”

But because life is nev­er played on just one lev­el, our autumn has been filled with every oth­er con­ceiv­able delight.

I spent a heav­en­ly week­end, when I was at the absolute depth of my “I can’t pos­si­bly accom­plish this” mood, at Kingston Lacy, a sub­lime Nation­al Trust prop­er­ty, at a writ­ing work­shop organ­ised by my bril­liant friend Rosie, Writer-in-Res­i­dence, and taught by my equal­ly bril­liant men­tor, Orlan­do.  What a shot in the arm, a stim­u­lus at just the right moment.

Two com­plete days of work on writ­ing, no domes­tic­i­ty, no fam­i­ly, just pon­der­ing the future of my writ­ing career under the sup­port and love of Rosie and Orlan­do was just what the doc­tor ordered.

And then more happened.

The fol­low­ing week brought our half-term hol­i­day, spent in the fairy­tale city of Prague.  John’s love­ly mom came all the way from Iowa to join us, and the four of us walked, climbed, shopped, and ate our way through this mag­i­cal Czech city.

In our short time in Prague, we man­aged to engage in the Great Ham Scam, to tour the beau­ti­ful St Nicholas church, to climb to the top of the Town Hall Tow­er, with its incred­i­ble views.

We vis­it­ed the Cas­tle, after a heav­en­ly walk across the Charles Bridge.

Our glo­ri­ous guide Ire­na intro­duced us to “Prague’s Most Dan­ger­ous Bev­er­age,” a light and deli­cious “ear­ly wine.”  What fun to toast one anoth­er, at one of Prague’s farmer’s mar­kets, after a day of touring.

By far the most mem­o­rable food we ate in Prague was dis­cov­ered by John on our very first night, at the stun­ning­ly sim­ple cafe “Nase Maso,” or “Our Meat.”  Quite sim­ply, they serve steak tartare, chock-a-block with capers, onions and cor­ni­chons, served with tra­di­tion­al Czech rye sour­dough.  We WILL be back.  We ate there twice more!

We vis­it­ed the Kaf­ka Muse­um, the Com­mu­nist Muse­um, and refreshed our­selves with tra­di­tion­al rolled pas­tries, “trdel­nik,” crisp, warm and rich with cinnamon.

We spent lots of mon­ey at the fab­u­lous Shake­speare book­shop.

Then we ate at the pop­u­lar restau­rant Lokal, with deli­cious old-fash­ioned dish­es like schnitzel, and the most amaz­ing soup of liv­er and dumplings.

Avery’s con­tri­bu­tion to our tourism was our late-after­noon vis­it, on our last day, to the Cafe Kaficko, with quite sim­ply the most unusu­al hot choco­late in the world.  An impos­si­ble com­bi­na­tion of thick and love­ly, intense­ly chocolatey.

As always, one of my favorite parts of a hol­i­day was the time to spend with my fam­i­ly, time not giv­en over to home­work, prop­er­ty devel­op­ment, cook­book issues.  Just time to enjoy life, which for Avery meant life with her Leica.

How we walked!  Every night we col­lapsed at our flat with feet that felt they could­n’t take anoth­er step.  Then the next day we were ready for more.  John’s mom treat­ed us to a mag­i­cal din­ner atop a roof near the city cen­tre, with views you sim­ply could­n’t believe were real.  And fire­works!  What a city.  And how lucky we were to have Rose­mary with us on our adventure.

Home from Prague, it was time for Avery’s birth­day, her 18th.  It was almost impos­si­ble to cel­e­brate, with her Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty exam loom­ing, with all the pres­sure that can pos­si­bly be exert­ed on these girls to suc­ceed.  We gave her her presents and remem­bered the old­en days when every­thing was much sim­pler (although it did­n’t feel that way at the time).

On the vol­un­teer­ing front, my Home-Start babes have turned one!  I face the end of my time with them with equa­nim­i­ty this time, being slight­ly more mature than I was a year ago, fac­ing good­byes to my last fam­i­ly.  They will be fine.  I will miss them, and our week­ly walks through the bright leaves of Barnes, as I talk to them, feed them, play with them dur­ing our after­noons together.

On the Eve of Remem­brance Sun­day, John and I took a trip to East Lon­don, to the Tow­er, to see the famous pop­py exhib­it, quite sim­ply one of the most emo­tive expe­ri­ences I have ever had.  Air­planes from City Air­port took spe­cial routes, to give their pas­sen­gers a chance to see this unbe­liev­able installation.

To add an almost pal­pa­ble sense of excite­ment to life, Mom and Andy came to vis­it!  This epic event had been hot­ly antic­i­pat­ed since sum­mer, when Mom first bandied about the idea that she might be feel­ing well enough to brave the long jour­ney.  And she did!

What fun we had!  I don’t think we could have crammed any more into the six days of their vis­it.  A bus tour on a day that start­ed out rather wet, but the skies cleared mirac­u­lous­ly in time for us to enjoy the views, espe­cial­ly of the Weep­ing Win­dow at the Tow­er, with the pop­pies still in place.

Tea at the Gor­ing with Fiona and Kim!

Lunch with Sue at The Botanist, con­ver­sa­tion sim­ply unstop­pable, and din­ner here at home with Eliz­a­beth and Mad­die, for a late cel­e­bra­tion of Avery’s birthday!

There were impor­tant birth­day cup­cakes, from Madeleine’s Bou­tique in Sheen.  How would Avery have got through so much of the last year with­out tele­vi­sion (lots of it real­ly bad)?

We had lunch at the gor­geous Peter­sham Nurs­eries, too ear­ly for their Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions, but still love­ly with its climb­ing vines.

We popped in a cab and made our way to Tot­ten­ham Court Road to see “White Christ­mas,” a dream come true for the three of us, who togeth­er (and prob­a­bly sep­a­rate­ly) can quote the entire film!  Mom rem­i­nisced about her date to see the pre­miere, when she was in high school.  An unfor­get­table mati­nee, “all that snow.”

She and Andy were here to view the proofs of the cookbook!

Andy him­self had what I think was a fine, fine time.  I had fixed him up with a B&B here in our lit­tle neigh­bor­hood, with a love­ly lady who gives over her cozy sum­mer­house to guests.  She and Andy hit it off straight­away, and every morn­ing when he came to our house after his evening and break­fast with her, he was sim­ply thrilled with his chats.  She had been involved in the rock scene of Lon­don in the 1970s, which could­n’t have fit bet­ter with Andy’s life.  He him­self went on a rock and roll tour — includ­ing Abbey Road! — and to the British Muse­um, brav­ing pub­lic trans­port and hav­ing a grand hol­i­day.  She sent him to a local memo­r­i­al to musi­cian Mark Bolan, who died in a car crash here in Barnes.

As much as I loved all the spe­cial events I’d planned — end­ing with Mom hear­ing me ring and meet­ing my ring­ing friends, and brunch at the Olympic with John and Suzanne — the best was hav­ing her in the kitchen with me, talk­ing over every­thing that we miss say­ing all the year long — what’s hap­pen­ing with Avery, our build­ing plans, my friends, her friends, Days of Our Lives!  Just time to be togeth­er, relaxed.

All too soon, the vis­it came to an end.  On a cold and frosty day, we put Mom and Andy back in a cab and waved them off to Heathrow, all of us full to the brim with mem­o­ries of a won­der­ful week.

Before we could catch our breath, it was time for the school Christ­mas Fair!  Always one of the hap­pi­est days of the hol­i­day sea­son, the cul­mi­na­tion of months and months of work with hun­dreds of vol­un­teers, all to flower on one day in Novem­ber.  John as Trea­sur­er and I as helper in the “Vin­tage” cloth­ing stall had our work cut out.  Clothes fold­ed, hung, tagged, priced and arranged, gos­sip exchanged with moth­ers who have been my friends for sev­en years — a bit­ter­sweet day because this time next year, every­thing will be so dif­fer­ent.  No more school.  It was a day to remember.

This mem­o­rable autumn.  How have we man­aged to get up every day and accom­plish all these things!  And man­aged, at the same time, to get home­work done, to get Pot­ters Fields to the start­ing line, to get din­ner cooked each night.  How we will have earned our Christ­mas hol­i­day.  And that’s prob­a­bly where you’ll see us next…