autumn arrives

Autumn is here, my favorite time of year. ’ Tis the sea­son, almost as much as Christ­mas, when all our activ­i­ties get ratch­eted up in inten­si­ty and it seems there is nev­er a chance to take a deep breath.  In just the last four days, we have been to the Roy­al Albert Hall to see Idi­na Men­zel and Mar­vin Ham­lisch in con­cert (beyond amaz­ing, quite sim­ply the best con­cert we’ve ever been to), host­ed a din­ner par­ty for 14 (I was wor­ry­ing it was going to be 13 until one fam­i­ly unex­pect­ed­ly brought their Ger­man exchange stu­dent who spoke no Eng­lish, so it was a bit dif­fi­cult to tell good news from bad), and drove to Kingston to see Jane Ash­er in “The Impor­tance of Being Earnest,” our favorite play of all time.

All sim­ply love­ly activ­i­ties on their own, but squashed togeth­er into too few days has left me feel­ing a bit as if I’ve eat­en too much foie gras over too short a peri­od… and in need of a cup of tea.

In the midst of all this, Avery has had a mile­stone.  Those wretched braces, her reluc­tant com­pan­ions for the last two years, are GONE!  She is very happy.

And I spent two love­ly morn­ings with my super-vol­un­teer friend Fiona, who last year was kind enough to invite me to take part in one of her ele­gant and yet home­ly projects: The Queen Moth­er’s Cloth­ing Guild, which sees hun­dreds of vol­un­teers gath­er­ing togeth­er in St James’s Palace in Piccadilly.

We spent the hours sort­ing through thou­sands of donat­ed and pur­chased new gar­ments for needy women and chil­dren.  I was­n’t allowed to take pho­tos inside the Palace, so I can only describe to you the GRANDEUR!  We fold­ed and sort­ed sweat­suits in a room with ceil­ings four times as high as my own house, looked down on by TWO Joshua Reynolds heroes of the aris­toc­ra­cy.  The room next to us was entire­ly cov­ered in TAPES­TRY!  The walls were hung with spi­ral­ing arrange­ments of weapon­ry and her­aldry… and anoth­er room adja­cent to ours was the set­ting for William’s and Kate’s engage­ment announce­ment!  It was rumoured that the hap­py cou­ple were IN the build­ing as we worked, pos­si­bly even had entered through the same cob­ble­stoned court­yard I had myself come through!

What an extra­or­di­nary priv­i­lege to be in such a set­ting, sur­round­ed by love­ly hard-work­ing women, drag­ging enor­mous box­es of sheets and pil­low­cas­es from one room to anoth­er, buy­ing up aprons embla­zoned with the Guild’s logo as presents for var­i­ous deserv­ing friends at Christmas!

How amaz­ing to take our lunch break and eat our sand­wich­es under a giant 25-feet-wide paint­ing depict­ing Queen Vic­to­ri­a’s arrival in India!  And get this: to find the ladies’ room, one had to pass through what is Prince Charles’ favorite room in which to read the paper!  Red bro­cade wall­pa­per and all.  Sim­ply amazing.

If all that grandeur were not enough, last week saw us at the 502nd birth­day par­ty of Avery’s school, in the awe-inspir­ing envi­rons of St Paul’s Cathe­dral.  How won­der­ful to lis­ten to the choir singing “Lord, gra­cious­ly hear us,” in a des­cant writ­ten by Avery’s own music teacher, sur­round­ed by the mosa­ic images of the Saints, with the girls and boys fil­ing past in all their young, bril­liant splen­dor.  Sad­ly, anoth­er event at which was strict­ly enjoined against tak­ing pho­tos, but here is an offi­cial one.

And I have been labor­ing hap­pi­ly in the sup­port of my beloved church, not only bell­ring­ing mad­ly (and with some mar­gin­al suc­cess at ring­ing my first method, Plain Hunt on Five, of which I am ridicu­lous­ly proud!) but also tak­ing part in that MOST Eng­lish of all pos­si­ble activ­i­ties: the church cof­fee morn­ing.  Here is the view of the lit­tle cof­fee shop, com­plete with crunchy autum­nal leaves.

I called John up sur­rep­ti­tious­ly on the day to say that I felt EXACT­LY as if I were in an Agatha Christie nov­el, just wait­ing for the body to turn up in the scullery!  The sto­ry was this: one day in the year, on Sat­ur­day as it turns out, the cof­fee shop ladies who nor­mal­ly sell their wares to the gen­er­al pub­lic took off their aprons and head­ed over to the Church Hall to run the Jum­ble Sale.  We the bell­ringers stepped up to run the cof­fee shop in their absence!

I had been put in charge of ask­ing every­one to donate a cake or “bis­cuits” or fairy cakes, and had gath­ered a good­ly num­ber.  I myself took a lemon-blue­ber­ry cake with driz­zle top­ping, and an apple-banana cake over which I lib­er­al­ly sprin­kled icing sug­ar (con­fec­tion­er’s sug­ar to us Yanks) in an attempt to make it look more pro­fes­sion­al.  “Should these be priced at £1, or 50p?” we asked each oth­er, slic­ing up orange-hon­ey cake with a yogurt and pis­ta­chio icing, old-fash­ioned gin­ger cakes and Vic­to­ria Sponges, arrang­ing cof­fee cups and tea bags and sug­ar bowls.  This was the scene.

Between plat­ing cakes and mak­ing signs and arrang­ing flow­ers (Matthew came in with an offer­ing of a posy from his gar­den: “These are chamomile…”), we took turns run­ning over to the bell­ring­ing cham­ber to send our peals out over the vil­lage.  How I adore that blue door, with our bicy­cles propped against the wall which so mirac­u­lous­ly pro­tect­ed our beloved bells from the fire in the 1970s.  What hap­py mem­o­ries I have now of the six months I have been com­ing to the church to learn my art.

What fun it all was.  And no body turned up in the scullery, as far as I know.

Of course, the giant excite­ment of our autumn sea­son has been the Vis­it of Lau­rie and Chris­t­ian, all the way from South Africa!  Lau­rie is one of my clos­est friends ever, dat­ing back to 1983 when we were excit­ed, ner­vous, chat­ty, hap­py fresh­men in col­lege who lived in the same dor­mi­to­ry for the first year and hap­pi­ly joined the same soror­i­ty which meant shar­ing EVERY­THING for the whole four years of col­lege.  She has­n’t changed a BIT.  Still the same gor­geous Texas girl of our youth!

Chris­t­ian is her 11-year-old boy, a total joy to have around.  Of course it does­n’t hurt that he’s drop-dead gorgeous.

From the moment of their arrival, our lives were just that much brighter than they had been before.  Lau­rie is a tall girl, with arms that hug you with her whole being.  She has nev­er lost her Texas lilt of voice, her bub­bling way of speak­ing, her bot­tom­less enthu­si­asm for every­thing around her.  Life just sparkles when she is around.

We spent the whole first evening catch­ing up.  “It’s dif­fer­ent, though, catch­ing up in the age of Face­book and email,” Lau­rie observed.  “We know what each oth­er’s hous­es and kids look like, we’ve had a chance to say we’ve moved house, or changed schools, so it’s a lot eas­i­er.”  It was true: we got right down to the nit­ty grit­ty of appre­ci­at­ing each oth­er, as we always have.

What is it about old friend­ships?  I have moved house — and indeed coun­try — so many times that I con­sid­er myself to be an expert at friend­ship.  New friends from new schools, new neigh­bor­hoods, new jobs, new shops, a new church: I am a con­nois­seur of friends.  They come in all shapes and sizes: the friend you see once a year to go to a food fes­ti­val and stuff your­selves with gourmet food, the friend you meet for lunch to cel­e­brate or com­mis­er­ate, the friend who is your child’s best friend’s moth­er, the friend who teach­es you to ring a bell.  I cher­ish them all.

But there is some­thing inde­scrib­ably pre­cious about an old, old friend.  That per­son who knew you 25 pounds ago, who became part of your life when you weren’t old enough to drink but did it togeth­er any­way, who knew you before you knew your hus­band whom you feel you’ve known for­ev­er… that per­son who was at your wed­ding and met your baby when she was tiny, who knew your par­ents when they were the age we are now!  That friend is one you keep, you hold onto, you appre­ci­ate with all your heart and history.

For me, the essence of an old friend­ship lies in the fact that she has seen you at your best, at your worst and every­where in between, and still loves you any­way.  New friend­ships are a bit more lux­u­ri­ous: you can choose to see them only when you’re at your best, or at least pre­sentable.  But when a friend has seen you flat out in tears — the teenage “I’ll nev­er be hap­py again and ONLY YOU will ever under­stand” sort of tears, and also the adult tears of real heart­break — or des­per­ate­ly hun­gover when you both wake up togeth­er in your dorm room, or after you’ve been up for 28 straight hours study­ing for that wretched Ger­man exam (Lau­rie always thought of my Ger­man teacher as HER Ger­man teacher, that’s how sym­pa­thet­ic she was)… well, then, that friend holds a spe­cial spot in your life.

What adven­tures we had!  The very first day I had to love them and leave them, for my sec­ond day vol­un­teer­ing at the Queen’s Moth­er’s Cloth­ing Guild (that is fun to type).  So they went off to Green­wich to stand on the medi­an line — bor­ing but nec­es­sary for Chris­tian’s geog­ra­phy home­work! — and to take a boat down the Thames, while I fold­ed scarves and count­ed t‑shirts.  Then we all met up at home where I was busi­ly mak­ing chick­en meat­ball soup for Avery’s ail­ing best friend, and chick­en-aspara­gus car­bonara for us.

How we talked and talked and talked.

 And the tourist activ­i­ties that I always get up to when vis­i­tors come… we marched poor Chris­t­ian through THREE muse­ums on Wednes­day morn­ing along!  The Sci­ence Muse­um (where frankly the shop was our favorite exhib­it, I think!), the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, and the V&A, where we sat out­side in the spec­tac­u­lar Indi­an sum­mer sun­shine, beneath the impres­sive out­door sculp­ture exhibit.

If you ever find your­self in that “Muse­um Row” in Knights­bridge, let me tell you a lit­tle secret: the cafe in the court­yard of the V&A is a spec­tac­u­lar spot: sim­ple sand­wich­es and sal­ads, love­ly pas­tries and tea, and you can plop your­self down in the sun­shine around the cen­tral foun­tain and watch the world go by — at least that por­tion of the world that wants to look at Vic­to­ri­an cast courts and then take a break for lunch.  Oh, those cast courts!  Repli­cas of ALL the great mas­ter­pieces of the medieval-Goth­ic-Renais­sance times in Europe, made out of plas­ter but total­ly con­vinc­ing as stone, mar­ble and bronze.  So impres­sive.  Fiona had joined us for lunch, and she took us on a tour of those incred­i­ble replicas.

And when you’re ready to plunge into the South Kens­ing­ton Tube, take a tiny detour and blow your cheese bud­get at La Cave a Fro­mage, sim­ply my favorite cheese shop in Lon­don, I believe, part­ly because they give SAM­PLES!  And they car­ry what is to my mind the finest of all creamy cheeses: the three-milk Robi­o­la (sheep, ewe and goat milk! amazing).

We came home, dumped all our parcels and head­ed over to the near­by school fields where I had got per­mis­sion for us to watch a rug­by prac­tice!  What a glo­ri­ous way to spend a per­fect mid-Sep­tem­ber late after­noon… sit­ting on a grassy hill, gos­sip­ing with my pre­cious friends, watch­ing young boys try to destroy each oth­er!  Chris­t­ian found an aban­doned ball and had a run around (I’m sure no one mind­ed when one of his enthu­si­as­tic kicks sent the ball over the fence into the road!).  Glo­ri­ous day.

We all piled into our tiny con­vert­ible and head­ed over to Avery’s school to pick her up and make the trans­fer of soup to her ail­ing friend (I firm­ly believe that my chick­en soup with meat­balls should be patent­ed for cur­ing minor ill­ness­es, and even major ill­ness­es should­n’t be ruled out).  Lau­rie and I got per­mis­sion to go on a quick tour of the school, and it was fun to see the pret­ty 100-year-old cam­pus with new eyes: the fab­u­lous­ly impres­sive Main Hall with its enor­mous Vic­to­ri­an organ, the play­ing fields stretch­ing out in the sun, the mosaics and engraved names of the “schol­ars” from 100 years of girls’ achieve­ments in the hallway.

Home for that pro­tein-fest din­ner, pier­rade, per­fect in the slight­ly chilly dusk.

Thurs­day saw us shop­ping in Regent Street, find­ing Christ­mas presents for every­one on Lau­rie’s list.  Then we had a pic­nic, thought of just that morn­ing as we sur­veyed our trea­sures from “La Cave.”  Robi­o­la, Gor­gonzo­la, Bre­sao­la and Prosci­uot­to di Par­ma, all with a crunchy baguette, and pile of hard-boiled eggs, a clutch of tiny toma­toes.  We sat on the grass in Hanover Square and watched all the young busi­ness­peo­ple in their suits and ties, scarf­ing down sand­wich­es.  They went off to a mati­nee of “War Horse,” and came home blown away, teary and touched, as we all have been after see­ing that mag­nif­i­cent play.  I offered restora­tive fried had­dock and fresh tartare sauce.

I spent Fri­day morn­ing putting my beloved church back togeth­er after a busy evening the night before.  “What hap­pened HERE?” I asked when I came in, see­ing over­turned chairs, crumbs, emp­ty wine­glass­es.  “We had the hell of a fash­ion show!” answered one of my bell­ring­ing teach­ers, and we all put our heads down to hoover, take out recy­cling, rebuild the altar, replace kneel­ers and can­dles.  I love every­thing I do in that place!

Then home for a HOT HOT after­noon, get­ting ready for our din­ner par­ty that evening.  It was glo­ri­ous fun to have every­one pitch­ing in, putting nap­kins in sil­ver rings, pick­ing up on John’s bril­liant idea to move the enor­mous din­ing table OUT­SIDE in the gar­den!  He mowed the lawn, I cooked — chick­en meat­balls in a sour cream-papri­ka sauce, green beans in gar­lic and lemon — Lau­rie set the table, fill­ing can­dle­sticks, choos­ing wine glass­es, chat­ting all the time.  That is just about my favorite time, get­ting ready for a fab­u­lous evening, in our cozy home.

Our guests arrived and a won­der­ful evening began, find­ing out straight­away that one of our guests went to the school in South Africa where Lau­rie has put Chris­t­ian down!  They actu­al­ly know peo­ple in com­mon, in their lit­tle road out­side Dur­ban.  I would say how unbe­liev­able that is, but such things seem to hap­pen in our lives all the time.

Con­ver­sa­tions flowed as the teenagers at one end of the table ironed out the world’s worth of polit­i­cal issues fac­ing them, Lau­rie and I regaled the adults with sil­ly sto­ries from our teenage years togeth­er, our friend James fell under Lau­rie’s spell…

And James’s wife fell under the spell of my dear friend Shauna!

It was a mag­i­cal evening when all the pieces are in place for every­one to have a good time.  “Look up at all those stars!” Sophie said.  “You nev­er see that many stars in Lon­don, never.”

Lau­rie said seri­ous­ly, “You must vis­it a place with peo­ple you love who live there, else you will nev­er see the stars in their sky.”

I could not rest on my hostess­ly lau­rels, how­ev­er, because Sat­ur­day bell­ring­ing prac­tice waits for no man.  At the end of the prac­tice, Lau­rie and Chris­t­ian turned up for the promised begin­ning les­son I had arranged with my teachers!

And then they were off, giv­en a ride by Lau­rie’s child­hood friend who hap­pens to live a mile from me!  We promised to return the vis­it per­haps next fall!  Would­n’t that be excit­ing, to stay with real South Africans on a game farm?  Watch this space.

Real life has set­tled down again, I sup­pose.  How blue I felt for days after Lau­rie and Chris­t­ian left, bulging suit­cas­es show­ing the fruits of their shop­ping, bone-crush­ing hugs and end­less sil­ly jokes.  The only con­so­la­tion for miss­ing them is know­ing how lucky I was to have them here at all.

I will leave you with a recipe I just tried for the first time last night, tak­en from a cook­book, “Sump­tu­ous,” that Lau­rie brought for me.  Part of her remains here, after all.  Thank you, friends, for an unfor­get­table time!

Aubergine Caviar

serves about 10 as a side dish)

2 medi­um aubergines/eggplants, whole

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves gar­lic, minced

4 sal­ad onions, fine­ly chopped

juice of 1 lemon

2 tbsp flat leaf pars­ley, chopped

1 cup/250 ml creme fraiche

sea salt and black pep­per to taste

Prick the aubergines all over with a fork and rub olive oil onto them.  Roast at 220C/400F for 30 min­utes.  Let cool, then cut in half and scoop the insides out into a medi­um bowl.  Fold in all the oth­er ingre­di­ents.  Voila! Per­fect with slow-roast­ed shoul­der of lamb.