stop the train, please!

I remem­ber last year at this time I felt that the world was spin­ning much too fast. It must be to do with the age of my child, and there­fore the myr­iad activ­i­ties that spread their ten­ta­cles into our adult lives, which with­out her would involve mostly laun­dry, scoop­ing the lit­ter­box and blog­ging. Suf­fice to say that life with an 11-year-old with many diverse inter­ests fills up very quickly indeed. It’s nearly all good, it’s just… too much! Tonight we are all exhausted, and pack­ing still beck­ons. Tomor­row we go to Con­necti­cut for Christ­mas! But first, let me tell you about the last few crazy days. Some of it might be stuff you’d want to do in Lon­don next hol­i­day sea­son, but mostly I want to record it all in hopes that next year I’ll remem­ber how insane every­thing was and SLOW DOWN. My bet is, how­ever, on an exact repeat in 2008.

Well, after my fab­u­lous encounter with Matthew on Mon­day, the week pro­gressed to morn­ing rehearsals at All Souls church for the after­noon carol ser­vice. I have to say “ser­vice,” because this aus­tere terms explains why we can’t CLAP which I find ter­ri­ble. Espe­cially for the lit­tle lit­tles, who seem so puz­zled at the end of their per­for­mances to face… silence! The rehearsal went very smoothly with applause (a rehearsal!) from Mrs D and Miss C, and we felt very good about it! Then some Christ­mas shop­ping to fill in the hour or so between rehearsal and our lunch together. And a tip for you all? Do NOT go to the St George’s Hotel restau­rant for lunch! Ever. It is, as was reputed, the most gor­geous view of what I sup­pose you’d call The Greater Maryle­bone Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area, you could see for miles, but the scal­lops were, in a word, ined­i­ble, and other ladies’ tomato soup looked com­pletely for­get­table. Sorry, but stan­dards are standards.

Thence to the per­for­mance, and the entire con­cert was just gor­geous. From the tiny lit­tles barely able to squeak out “It’s a Baby,” to the senior choir and vio­lin­ists so impres­sive, and our own moth­ers’ song, it was very touch­ing and lovely. Lots of tis­sues needed on all sides. Finally out, to the school for every­one to gather together back­packs, change clothes, and off with Jamie and her mother, plus Anna and Ellie, to the Hyde Park Win­ter Won­der­land!

Now, as bit­ter cold as it was, I’d def­i­nitely go back. A beau­ti­ful sort of Lon­don Eye fer­ris wheel thingy (too scary for me, but John said it was gor­geous), a very nice carousel, a cou­ple of mildly scary rides and a nice Ger­man mar­ket with orna­ments and other stock­ing stuffers. But COLD! And we could not get tick­ets for the skat­ing rink, but from the report from on high, it was much too crowded for real skat­ing any­way. A word to the wise.

The next day dawned so early! Avery off to the last half day of school, and I for some last-minute Christ­mas shop­ping, then pick­ing her up and dash­ing off to lunch at the beloved Man­darin Kitchen with Avery’s school friend Sophia and her mother Susan. Deli­cious, and I tried to keep my mind from the fact that I was hav­ing din­ner… there! That night. A request from Becky’s hus­band Mark. From lunch to the skat­ing rink at Queensway to watch a truly needle-in-the-eyeball per­for­mance of “Sleep­ing Beauty,” per­formed by that sad­dest of ath­letes: the middle-aged, aver­age skater. I just wouldn’t! I learned what I love about skat­ing: watch­ing my child skate, or mind-boggling pro­fes­sion­als. No one in between, sorry! But the sec­ond half (one and a half hours into it, eergh, my feet have never been so cold) was much bet­ter: very short ren­di­tions of pop­u­lar songs by lots of dif­fer­ent skaters, very impres­sive and fun to watch. And most impor­tant, inspi­ra­tional to the girls. Still, WAS I glad when it came to an end! We raced home to get ready to drop Avery at Anna’s and go out to din­ner with her par­ents, and again a sim­ply lovely evening. Bril­liant con­ver­sa­tion about all the places they have lived, all the places we have lived, vis­ited, etc. And another very late night!

Up this morn­ing to dis­cuss all this, and then get ready for… the Olympia Horse Show! I remem­bered to pack enough anti­his­t­a­mines to get me through, and the show-jumping was stu­pen­dous. The crowds at the shop­ping! The Shet­land Pony races were adorable, the dog agility hilar­i­ous, and the Cos­sacks very impres­sive. By the time Avery and Becky’s girls had given their all to the char­ity raf­fle and come away with sev­eral com­pletely unnec­es­sary stuffed ponies, and the Christ­mas finale had taken place, the noise level was unbe­liev­able. We came home in a sort of daze of fun, admi­ra­tion, and also a grow­ing sense of scratch­i­ness. Time for some relax­ation. And I can report a culi­nary exper­i­ment gone very, very right. Give it a try.

Roast Chicken With­out You
(serves four with soup leftovers)

1 large roast­ing chicken, prefer­ably organic
1 tsp each: dried oregano, basil and thyme leaves
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 lemon, halved
3 tbsps butter

Place your chicken on a sheet of tin­foil in a large bak­ing dish. Sprin­kle with herbs, pour wine and stock around, stuff with lemon and smear with but­ter. Place in a 100 degree centi­grade (280 degrees fahren­heit) oven and GO AWAY. Leave it for SIX HOURS. Even more, prob­a­bly. Come home, baste it. Pour the juices into a gravy sep­a­ra­tor, whisk a dust­ing of flour into the juices in a skil­let and add a table­spoon of cream. Heat through. Serve the sliced roast chicken with mashed pota­toes and red pep­pers that you’ve cooked down in olive oil until they’re caramel-y. So comforting.

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Well, we’re packed. We’re still irri­ta­ble, a bit, which I put down to too much activ­ity, all of it won­der­ful, but… too much. Time for a good night’s sleep, travel tomor­row, and arrival at the bliss that is Red Gate Farm. Merry Christ­mas everyone!