is there a cat psy­chol­o­gist in the house?

Well, all right, here he looks pretty happy. At least he’s not clock­ing his sis­ter Keechie over the head. But in gen­eral, Wim­sey needs some ther­apy. He skulks about look­ing sin­is­ter, whack­ing his sib­lings around, look­ing sus­pi­ciously as if he’s scout­ing an alter­nate lit­ter box to the one I’ve planned for him. In gen­eral, our rela­tion­ship is fraught. So believe it or not I’m surf­ing this morn­ing for kitty ther­a­pists. So far I have honed in on a hilar­i­ous web­site called “Pets Behav­ing Badly,” and appar­ently par­rots are a high-risk pet, which I didn’t know. Lots of “rehom­ing issues.” Maybe that’s what ails Wim­sey; he’s an Anglo­phobe caught in a lux­ury Lon­don flat. Secretly he longs for the plains of Kansas, or even the smelly July streets of New York, eat­ing Friskies from a can instead of the high-protein health food we’re push­ing on him here. Maybe he wants to be an only cat. Unfor­tu­nately John is all too ready to make that hap­pen, so I keep telling Wim­sey he’s skat­ing on thin parental ice. So far he seems too sunk in his own psy­chodrama to pull up his socks (one of my favorite Eng­lish expres­sions for “get over it”) and move on with his life. Sigh. I’ve got to get this sorted before he’s the respon­si­bil­ity of our lovely hous­esit­ter, Kate, begin­ning July 12, when we arrive in Connecticut.

As if this were not enough stress in my del­i­cate con­di­tion, guess how I look as a red­head? No, it’s not Pho­to­shop we’re talk­ing here, it’s a REALLY bad color job. I wish I were mak­ing this up. Last week I decided I deserved a lit­tle pam­per­ing, plus I wanted to get back to my nice fake blonde high­lights with which I’ve been liv­ing for years, instead of the grown-out dirty blonde that is my nat­ural color. So against Avery’s and John’s wishes I booked myself an appoint­ment at a posh (so I thought) salon in Wig­more Street, that I pass every day on the way to and from school, and turned up at noon on Fri­day to become A More Beau­ti­ful Me. FOUR HOURS LATER I finally escaped, hav­ing been, in that time, a sort of watery straw­berry blonde hor­ror, a slightly darker insipid kind of beer color, and finally a red­dish ver­sion of what I went in as. And to cap it all off, it was done by a wretched girl who was intro­duced to me as some­thing pro­nounced like “Mahn-OO-ray,” but when I got her actual busi­ness card, yep, she’s Manure. I got my hair done by Poop Girl. It’s just awful. I get a lit­tle hor­rid shock every time I see myself, and John and Avery are silent in their con­dem­na­tion. What to do.

Well, in the mean­time was Avery’s school out­ing to York! She and all her lit­tle school chums met up at King’s Cross rail­way sta­tion (with their groggy moth­ers and overwhelmed-looking teach­ers) bright and early at 8 a.m. on Fri­day. They looked pretty dar­ling in their uni­forms, clutch­ing back­packs filled with read­ing mate­r­ial for the train, heavy-duty lunches and snacks and water bot­tles, dis­pos­able cam­eras, and ABSOLUTELY NO soft toys. Mrs Bick­ley got that one right. Can you imag­ine all 17 of them turn­ing up with their hun­dreds of Syl­va­ni­ans, those tiny lit­tle flocked ani­mals they all col­lect? The belea­guered teach­ers marched them off toward the train plat­form, look­ing slightly as if they ought to be scat­ter­ing bread crumbs behind them if we planned to see them ever again. But sure enough, six p.m. found John and me scan­ning the crowd for their lit­tle faces. Every­one appeared a bit rum­pled but oth­er­wise intact, and full of sto­ries about the archae­o­log­i­cal dig they went on (yield­ing the largest fos­silised poop ever found, what a treat), the bridge that had only one rail­ing and if you fell off it would be into a sting­ing net­tle patch, the creepy tombs with peo­ple on top fold­ing their hands, and of course most impor­tant, the gift shop. It may be the very first time that Avery’s been some­where we’ve never been, which is a mile­stone in its own way.

My week, before the hair dis­as­ter, was enlivened by a visit from my long­time New York friend Joan, here on a busi­ness trip with her hus­band who is the cura­tor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! She was full of sto­ries about her Can­tor Fitzger­ald boss Howard Lut­nick, whose art col­lec­tion she man­ages (to my delight as gallery-owner; he was a fre­quent client), and her two lit­tle girls, and life in New York in gen­eral. They were sand­wich­ing in a visit to us between din­ners with The Clash, con­certs, and trips to see secret col­lec­tions of rock mem­o­ra­bilia. We had a lit­tle cock­tail party in the gar­den here at War­bur­ton House, with bli­nis topped with smoked salmon and sour cream, and my lat­est pack­ag­ing obses­sion: Marks and Spencers gin and ton­ics in a tiny lit­tle green can! All mixed up and ready to drink. Very pleasant.

The end of the school year is gear­ing up, rather than wind­ing down, with an exhaust­ing array of respon­si­bil­i­ties. The headmistress’s weekly let­ter on Fri­day ended with the suc­cinct obser­va­tion, “It will be a busy week, one feels.” One cer­tainly does. I live in the knowl­edge that I will for­get some­thing, some­time. I fig­ure as long as it’s not my child, left in a rail­way sta­tion, every­thing else can kind of go. Let’s see, there’s a pile of over­due library books that must be dealt with today, and the last skat­ing day tomor­row for which I did not suc­ceed in acquir­ing a fancy skat­ing out­fit for Avery, bad me. Then Sports Day on Wednes­day, in Regent’s Park, where the gulls all com­pete vocif­er­ously for House Points. Don’t know how Avery will fare. Mostly she is rejoic­ing at England’s World Cup progress to the quar­ter­fi­nals, after yesterday’s nail-biting win over Ecuador (David Beckham’s barf­ing on the side­lines notwith­stand­ing, ick). Avery’s house, Curie, owns Eng­land, so that’s good news, 20 points. Or do they have to make it to the semi-finals? I can’t keep track. Then Thurs­day is a visit to school by one of her favorite authors, who will read aloud and then sign books pro­vided by Daunt Book­shop, neces­si­tat­ing the pro­vi­sion of spend­ing money and much dis­cus­sion among the moth­ers about how much is rea­son­able. Thurs­day evening is the con­tro­ver­sial School Fash­ion Show, with ticket sales to ben­e­fit the Red Cross. Luck­ily Avery was not asked to par­tic­i­pate, because I would have been forced to take sides. So we’ll just turn up in the audi­ence and see what’s what. The social things these girls are going through defy descrip­tion. I think “ris­ing nines” are a very vul­ner­a­ble age. They are all try­ing to fig­ure out their peck­ing order, the best friends who must let in other chil­dren to their games, who dresses “cool” out­side school, etc. In dis­cussing one of the more trou­ble­some rela­tion­ships, Avery said, “It’s not that I don’t like her. It’s just that our friend­ship is quite volatile, and fickle.” As good a way to describe the tor­ments of pre-adolescence as any.

We’re really ready for school to be over. The lovely no-homework hia­tus of the pre-Joseph week, and the exam week, has given way to what will no doubt be com­pen­satory heavy loads this week. To think that Amer­i­can schools have been out for two weeks, some of them! We’ve got 10 days left till free­dom, and… Red Gate Farm!