appre­ci­at­ing the ordinary

I have been an absolute rub­bish blog­ger late­ly.  I’ll explain why, and then how my beau­ti­ful moth­er changed my mind.

Some­times does­n’t life just seem relent­less­ly dai­ly?  Lit­ter­box­es, full dish­wash­ers to emp­ty, emp­ty refrig­er­a­tors to fill.  Vol­un­teer­ing at Lost Prop­er­ty, cycling to errands.  Always laun­dry.  Even when doing all these things is against the back­drop of the Thames cruis­ing past my bed­room win­dow, or the lilt­ing accents of the BBC bur­ble in the back­ground while I cook din­ner, there does­n’t seem to be much of a note­wor­thy nature hap­pen­ing.  Cer­tain­ly not note­wor­thy enough to ask my loy­al read­ers to be interested.

And then I spoke with my moth­er on the phone last night, and when I said, “Life’s been a bit… bor­ing late­ly.  Noth­ing real­ly to report,” she laughed and said, “That sounds pret­ty good to me.  Late­ly I real­ly like it if noth­ing is hap­pen­ing, because that means noth­ing bad is hap­pen­ing.  And I’m always inter­est­ed in what’s hap­pen­ing to you.”

That is a much health­i­er out­look, it occurs, to me, than look­ing for dra­ma around every cor­ner.  How much nicer to appre­ci­ate the daili­ness of life, and how lucky I am to fol­low the peace­ful path that life has woven as spring has sprung.

It was peace­ful to make my way to Avery’s school to lis­ten to her “Singing Tea,” which sounds odd unless you live in Britain where any event is paired with the drink­ing of tea, when­ev­er pos­si­ble.  So every term we par­ents (moth­ers, real­ly) of girls who are tak­ing singing lessons gath­er in the Hall to hear our girls prac­tice the songs they will short­ly per­form for the offi­cial gov­ern­ment exams every March.  With cups of tea and slices of cake before­hand.  Hence, the “Singing Tea.”  (There is also a “Wind Tea” which sounds much more exot­ic, but it’s real­ly only flutes).  Avery sang brave­ly in Russ­ian before us all, and then that night John and I could hear her prac­tic­ing in her room at the top of the house.  That is a sound I will great­ly miss when she goes off to university.

Of course daili­ness includes ringing.

This month the bells took sec­ond stage to admin­is­tra­tion for two con­sec­u­tive week­ends, once while I cooked pota­toes Dauphi­noise and stuffed mush­rooms for 40, to feed all the ringers turn­ing up to our Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing, and then veg­etable and hal­lou­mi cous­cous and cucum­ber dill sal­ad for anoth­er 40, the guests of the “Chiswick Lunch,” which brings every­one togeth­er who ever rings for Sun­day ser­vices at St Nicholas, Chiswick.  I think the mush­rooms were the star attraction.

Stuffed Mush­rooms

(serves 4)

4 large flat mushrooms

4 small­er mushrooms

1 red pepper

2 cloves garlic

1/2 red onion

1 tbsp olive oil

1 round Boursin cheese

hand­ful Panko breadcrumbs

sea salt and fresh pep­per to taste

extra olive oil to driz­zle over

grat­ed Parme­san to sprin­kle over

Pull the stems from the large mush­rooms and dice them with the addi­tion­al mush­rooms.  Dice all oth­er veg­eta­bles and saute them in the olive oil until soft.  Mix with Boursin and bread­crumbs and sea­son to taste.  Pile the stuff­ing even­ly into the tops of the large mush­rooms.  Driz­zle with olive oil and sprin­kle with Parme­san.  Bake at 400F/200C for about 30 min­utes or until stuff­ing is hot and Parme­san melt­ed.  Remove to a plate and wait while mush­rooms release juices, then lift mush­rooms onto a clean plate to serve.

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Once all the press­ing mat­ters of bell-ring­ing had been sort­ed to our sat­is­fac­tion (where to go on the sum­mer out­ing, what sort of shape the hand­bells were in, who will vac­u­um the bel­fry stair­way before the sum­mer Fete), we repaired to our real busi­ness, ring­ing for a beau­ti­ful spring wedding.

It is one of the most joy­ous sounds in the world, the peal­ing of bells com­bined rau­cous­ly with the church organ, as the bride and groom walk proud­ly down the aisle.

Of course dai­ly life would­n’t be near­ly so hap­py if it weren’t for my Home-Start work.  I can’t tell you any­thing about “my” cur­rent fam­i­ly except that there are babies involved, real­ly small babies.  I cycle over every Fri­day, sink myself into the domes­tic rou­tine of tiny clothes, tiny bot­tles of milk, reports of night wak­ings, and then walk with “my” mum and the babies to a play group.  I have decid­ed that almost any sort of anx­i­ety in life could be solved, at least tem­porar­i­ly, by giv­ing every per­son a small, warm, sleep­ing baby to hold on one’s shoul­der, for about 15 min­utes.  The Zen nature of the breath­ing in, breath­ing out of a lit­tle crea­ture who is absolute­ly con­tent to be in one’s arms is not to be underestimated.

My Thurs­days have been enlivened by a new activ­i­ty, “Total Body Con­di­tion­ing.”  I put on very sil­ly and over­ly-youth­ful black span­dex leg­gings and cycle to my friend Car­rie’s stu­dio, and she leads me and sev­er­al oth­er will­ing ladies through a series of very stretchy and chal­leng­ing exer­cis­es, as well as the heav­en­ly sound of her voice calm­ly explain­ing mus­cle groups, the impor­tance of deep breath­ing, the effi­ca­cy of coconut oil in cook­ing.  It’s an hour of absolute Nir­vana, of delight­ful self-indul­gence, of “me-time.”  And then I cycle home feel­ing hun­gry and vir­tu­ous, pass­ing the high street’s blan­ket of daf­fodils in all their tem­po­rary glory.

March saw Lon­don­ers enjoy­ing that most rare of occur­rences: sun­shine!  Every­one’s mood was per­cep­ti­bly lighter as peo­ple ran, cycled, ambled, or rowed their way through the days.  Of course Tacy found an ide­al spot.

Keechie, in the blos­som­ing of her per­son­al­i­ty that has been an unex­pect­ed result of Wim­sey’s death, has emerged from the dark base­ment to sit with us on the liv­ing room sofa.  The Princess and the Pea, we call her now.

Cats are odd, aren’t they?  Just when you’ve lived with one for 12 years and have resigned your­self not ever to have a rela­tion­ship with her, a true cat-per­son pet­ting rela­tion­ship, sud­den­ly every­thing turns on its head and you’ve got a com­plete­ly new ani­mal on your hands.  I think tru­ly she realised that her most­ly com­pan­ion, Wim­sey, was leav­ing her, and that it behooved her to make oth­er friends.  Us.

And then the sun dis­ap­peared and there was HAIL!

The cats sat by the kitchen win­dow, puz­zled.  The sud­den wet cold made me wish for com­fort food, and for that, noth­ing rivals the classic.

Ulti­mate Mac­a­roni and Cheese

(serves about 8)

1 pounds conchiglie pas­ta, or oth­er shape that will hold sauce

3 tbsps butter

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp cornstarch/cornflour

grat­ing of fresh nutmeg

lots of fresh black pepper

dash of onion powder

3–4 cups/750–950ml whole milk (depend­ing on how much sauce you want in pro­por­tion to noodles)

1 pound/454g Taleg­gio cheese, rind removed

2/3 cup/60g home­made breadcrumbs

Boil the pas­ta accord­ing to pack­age instruc­tions, drain and pour into a but­tered casse­role dish that will hold the noo­dles plus sauce.

Melt the but­ter in a heavy saucepan and add flour, corn­flour and sea­son­ings, then mix with a whisk and cook for 1 minute.  Pour in milk slow­ly, whisk­ing all the time.  Do not let the mix­ture boil, or even sim­mer.  Add cheese in small chunks and keep over low heat, stir­ring often with the whisk, until cheese is melt­ed. Pour over pas­ta and stir gen­tly to allow sauce to cov­er all the hol­lows in the pas­ta.  Top with bread­crumbs and bake at 400F/200C for about 45 min­utes or until hot and bubbling.

I have made mac­a­roni and cheese about a thou­sand times, some­times with four or five dif­fer­ent cheeses, some­times with raw milk when I can get it from the farmer’s mar­ket.  This time my goal was a superbly creamy sauce with no grainy tex­ture, and I think this was achieved by the addi­tion of the corn­starch, and by the avoid­ance of aged, hard cheese like Ched­dar, Lan­cashire Poach­er or the like.  The Taleg­gio afford­ed an incred­i­bly smooth sauce with plen­ty of fla­vor.  Served sim­ply with some­thing green, this is the ulti­mate sup­per for cosy comfort.

I must admit: there was one event of undis­put­ed cool­ness in the last month, and that was the per­for­mance of Elgar­’s “Dream of Geron­tius” at the Roy­al Albert Hall.  Now, before you scratch your head and say, “Kris­ten, I have nev­er known you to be a mas­sive fan of clas­si­cal orches­tral music,” I must aver that what made this per­for­mance spe­cial was… Avery.  She sang in it!  As part of her school’s Senior Choir.

Now, I don’t expect you to be able to find her in the rows of tiny heads in the dis­tance, but she was there, singing her heart out with some of the best and bright­est that the Eng­lish musi­cal scene has to offer.

John and I sat proud­ly, drink­ing in every incom­pre­hen­si­ble syl­la­ble, ask­ing our­selves how a nice girl from Indi­ana and a nice boy from Iowa end­ed up in the Roy­al Albert Hall lis­ten­ing to their daugh­ter sing.  It was a very proud moment.  Such a beau­ti­ful, Eng­lish thing to do.

Drum roll, please… as of this morn­ing, John are proud pos­ses­sors of a pass­ing grade in the “Life in the UK” offi­cial gov­ern­ment exam!

To achieve this feat, we spent many hours on our iPhone apps prac­tic­ing.  “To what do the three cross­es in the British flag refer?”  “Which coun­tries make up Great Britain and which the Unit­ed King­dom?”  “Who built the Tow­er of Lon­don?”  “What is the sig­nif­i­cance of the Magna Char­ta?”  What made Hen­ry VIII famous?”  Per­haps less momen­tous­ly, but still of impor­tance, “What is the offi­cial flower of Wales?”  (It’s a daffodil.)

We are, there­fore, one step clos­er to dual cit­i­zen­ship.  Watch this space.

Speak­ing of space, we moseyed over on the week­end to our plot of dirt, with friends vis­it­ing from Amer­i­ca.  It’s always amus­ing to see peo­ple’s faces when we arrive at this inaus­pi­cious-look­ing loca­tion.  What will ever, ever be built there?

Soon it will be April.  The month will see us sup­port­ing Avery through her school “hol­i­days” which will be noth­ing of the sort, but rather end­less revis­ing for the all-impor­tant AS exams com­ing up in the sum­mer term.  Much com­fort food will be need­ed, and it is to be hoped the sun will shine for at least part of the time.

All quite ordi­nary.  And yet pret­ty mag­i­cal, too.  Thank you, Mom, for help­ing me remember.