com­ing back down to earth

Gen­eros­i­ty, over­whelm­ing laugh­ter, an obses­sive devo­tion to every aspect of food that met and even pos­si­bly (pos­si­bly!) sur­pass­es my own… what an unfor­get­table week­end. Three days and nights of end­less chat, end­less stints in the kitchen wrapped in aprons, exchang­ing tast­ing spoons with pre­cise­ly NO atten­tion to swine or any oth­er flu. Sev­en women and two boys who did not want for fawn­ing atten­tion, a for­mal gar­den full of plun­der­able delights like a gar­gan­tu­an flow­er­ing rose­mary bush, a patch of mint to rival Kew Gar­dens’ patch of mint, thyme, mar­jo­ram, the firmest spring onions any of us had ever seen, much less eat­en, and most mag­i­cal­ly, a vast bed of aspara­gus just com­ing on. I can only tell you that you have not prop­er­ly eat­en Eng­lish aspara­gus until you’ve steamed it min­utes after cut­ting it, and raced it to a dish of mus­tardy, but­tery, lemo­ny sauce.

Foxi Rosie, Sam, Adam, Katie, Pauline, Susan, Jen­ny and Caro: thank you from the bot­tom of my heart for the sheer joy of shared FUN: much more on this tomor­row when the recov­ery process has begun in earnest. For now, a sim­ple thank you with lin­ger­ing mem­o­ries of a laden, can­dlelit table, bursts of gig­gling over bad­gers and “come and smell my cork,” the best pork crack­ling known to man or woman, lis­ten­ing ears for a new chap­ter read aloud, a sun-dap­pled Sun­day walk with stom­achs full of minty lamb burg­ers and home­made tatzi­ki, a walk through the damply touch­ing tiny vil­lage church, my first York­shire pud­ding, and con­ver­sa­tions with a room­mate kept on even though there was plen­ty of room for us to move to a sin­gle. Star­ry skies, chill breezes, raids on local butch­ers and delis.

Raised glass­es to Rosie, our beloved leader who, if there was an ingre­di­ent or lux­u­ry she did not bring along, it’s only because it was illegal.

Three loud cheers to the “Gath­er­ing of Nuts in May”, the first of many reunions!