“Shad­ow­lands,” and Char­ing Cross Road, finally

Good­ness, I just came from see­ing “Atone­ment” again, and it was even more riv­et­ing and more admirable than the first view­ing. Each shot is like a per­fect moment under glass: every object in every room a nec­es­sary evo­ca­tion of a moment in time, every per­for­mance, and I mean EVERY, note­wor­thy. No char­ac­ter is imper­fectly cast, the music is com­pletely waterworks-producing (espe­cially this lit­tle bit of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” which I remem­ber my mother play­ing on the piano when I was lit­tle, so even more rea­son to get emo­tional). It is a won­der­ful, won­der­ful film and I only wish it were a lit­tle less, shall we say, mature in theme, so that Avery could see it. In a cou­ple of years, per­haps. Please go!

Well, Avery was able to accom­pany us to the PLAY! On Fri­day night, in Rich­mond (lit­tle did I know it was com­ing to Lon­don at the Wyn­d­ham, next week! ah, well, Richmond’s always a treat) It’s called “Shad­ow­lands”, and I’ve always loved Charles Dance, the actor play­ing CS Lewis, since see­ing him (as you prob­a­bly all did) in Gos­ford Park. Then he was mag­i­cal in Bleak House, as well as in the new series of Marple. And the silly Woody Allen Scar­lett Johanssen vehi­cle Scoop, from last sum­mer, if you can imagine.

In any case, he has always played super­cil­ious, slightly cruel Eng­lish­men, to my expe­ri­ence, and to see him so vul­ner­a­ble, not to men­tion LIVE in PER­SON, was really a treat. I wasn’t sure Avery would enjoy it, being num­ber one a child, and num­ber two, a rather cheer­ful sort of per­son, but we dragged her along any­way. Need­less to say, as when we saw “Office Suite” there, she was the youngest audi­ence mem­ber by at least 30 years, but she loved it. It’s a lovely evo­ca­tion of the love affair between CS (who knew he was called Clive??) Lewis and an Amer­i­can writer. Great per­for­mances and a great set depict­ing an Oxford don’s study. Avery thought they were all cler­gy­men, never hav­ing seen a don in robes before! Well, of course nei­ther have I, in real life, but I’m so fond of Dorothy L. Say­ers that I feel I have.

On a com­pletely dif­fer­ent topic, before I for­get: my new writ­ing class takes place in the unex­pect­edly ran­dom and unap­peal­ing sec­tion of Ham­mer­smith adja­cent to the tube sta­tion, and it is not in any way a des­ti­na­tion. Except per­haps one: there is a fan­tas­tic food shop to patro­n­ise, and I did. Bush­whack­ers Whole­foods is a dark­ish, earnest shop that takes itself very seri­ously indeed, with many posted notices, “Please do not open the olive oil bot­tles as it spoils our sales,” and “Please take as many car­rots as you want and close the bag,” and “Please let us know if you do not like the music play­ing and we will cer­tainly switch it off.” I bought a fan­tas­tic loaf of French sour­dough bread, a lovely bot­tle of olive oil (no sam­pling) and very fresh beet­roots. It’s worth a trip if you find your­self in deep­est Ham­mer­smith with some time to kill.

Let’s see, yes­ter­day found us with an hour while Avery was at act­ing, and we trot­ted up to Maida Vale and picked our­selves up what Avery later described as the “best pain au choco­lat since Paris,” at Baker & Spice, and a very tempt­ing shoul­der of lamb from
Sheep­drove Organic Farm, owned and oper­ated by Peter Kinder­s­ley, co-founder of Dor­ling Kinder­s­ley, one of the (to my mind) best pub­lish­ers of edu­ca­tional children’s books and videos in the world. Good for them! I must defend them against my husband’s under­stand­able objec­tion to food cost­ing too much: of course the shoul­der of lamb cost more (about 25 per­cent more) than at Tesco, but per­haps the proof of the lamb will be in the eat­ing? I will keep you posted. I do love sup­port­ing real peo­ple mak­ing real food, although of course some real farmer must pro­duce the lamb I buy at Tesco; it’s just so far removed from me that I can’t feel it.

Our life lately has been beset with some minor aggra­va­tions this week: the ardu­ous process of choos­ing and analysing var­i­ous senior schools that Avery might be able to attend in a year’s time, then the appli­ca­tions to fill out and the wor­ry­ing over how to decide what’s best for her. I would like her to stay where she is for­ever, but alas, she will all too soon out­grow all pos­si­bly sizes in uni­form and that, after all, is what deter­mines these things. And to wait to col­lect our com­pletely revamped and refur­bished enor­mous sofa cush­ion until after we get back from Ire­land? Some­thing deep inside me balks at leav­ing our neu­rotic Keechie, she who is respon­si­ble, after all, for the awful state in which we found the sofa after our summer’s absence… will she fall a vic­tim to recidi­vism? I can’t bear to think about it. I’d call you to get your advice only… I still have no phone!

Yes, stu­pid me, I left my mobile in Con­necti­cut some­where at the end of the sum­mer, and poor John has spent lit­er­ally hours on HIS phone with the stu­pid so-called ser­vice peo­ple. They keep insist­ing that we don’t have a real address (a mail­box full of bills notwith­stand­ing). Finally he asked them to send the new SIM card to my friend Becky, just to get them to DO some­thing. Of course then the next day, what’s in the mail­box? Three SIM cards. We got all excited for a minute, then it turned out that because he reported them unde­liv­ered, they’re… deac­ti­vated. I thought he would explode. A tiny con­fes­sion: I like not hav­ing a phone! I really don’t like talk­ing on mobiles, and it’s been inter­est­ing to see how much more organ­ised and thought­ful in plan­ning ahead we all must have been before we had them. You actu­ally have to BE where you said you would, because you can’t change plans! And it’s per­fectly pos­si­ble to do. But John’s sick of play­ing social sec­re­tary for both me and Avery, on his phone. It’s annoy­ing, the whole situation.

To con­sole us, there’s the last-ever sea­son of Parkin­son! And my dar­ling James McAvoy and the totally charm­ing Harry Con­nick, Jr. have been stel­lar guests. Only 10 weeks left, I think, so tune in.

Yes­ter­day found Avery and me in one of my favorite ever sec­tions of Lon­don, and I’m ashamed it’s taken us nearly two years of liv­ing here to get there: the book­shop alleys of Char­ing Cross Road! Being the book­worms we each are, it’s ridicu­lous that we’ve stayed away so long, but one gets in a rut, and just goes to the old walking-distance places. And she’s a huge fan of 84, Char­ing Cross Road as well, so dou­ble bad mummy me. But it was worth the wait. We were very naughty at my old stomp­ing grounds, Mur­der One, quite sim­ply the best mys­tery book­store ever, top­ping even, I think, Mur­der Ink in New York, although I loved that too. I just found out that it closed per­ma­nently in Jan­u­ary! What is hap­pen­ing to New York? First Clare­mont Rid­ing Acad­emy, now Mur­der Ink. The city is in dan­ger of los­ing its soul of pay­ing the rent con­tin­ues to kill off busi­ness. I can cer­tainly attest to that, after the glory and then tragedy that was my gallery. Ah wel. I’m told there are great mys­tery book­stores in Dublin, and when we get back from our half-term break there, I’ll be sure to report. Avery is begin­ning to want her own copies of books in my col­lec­tion, against the even­tual day that she’ll “pack up all my very own books and arrange them as I please,” was her glee­ful imag­in­ing yes­ter­day. Mostly Agatha Christies, she chose, and it gave me ridicu­lous plea­sure to hear­ing her wax lyri­cal over some of my favorites.

Then we were off to Any Amount of Books, a gor­geous musty old place where we picked some of the clas­sics Avery’s been ask­ing for, and some poetry, too, since she’s a final­ist in the school Poetry Read­ing Com­pe­ti­tion! Very excit­ing. She’s unstop­pable as far as recit­ing “The Lady Of Shalott” goes, as well as singing Loreena McKen­nitt’s lovely ren­di­tion of it. The finals are on Thurs­day, fin­gers crossed.

We fin­ished our Char­ing Cross adven­ture with a com­pletely indul­gent trip to Cyber­candy, an over the top candy store, filled with lots of for­eign treats, among them Amer­i­can candy from my child­hood. Avery was in heaven, and gloated over her finds dur­ing our cab ride home through Trafal­gar Square, up the Mall. A great way to spend the afternoon.

Well, we’re off to col­lect her at the sta­ble, so enjoy your Sun­day, wher­ever you are. I’ll leave you with a cosy Sun­day recipe, a nice vari­a­tion on my orig­i­nal mush­room soup recipe. So easy and so good.

Cream of Mush­room Soup