the end of our Lon­don Christ­mas season

It’s hard to believe that this time tomor­row, we’ll be approach­ing JFK and the Red Gate Farm part of our Christ­mas celebrations!

Life has been an absolute, unmit­i­gat­ed mad­house for our fam­i­ly in the last sev­er­al weeks.  It seems as if every pos­si­ble “fast-for­ward” on every remote con­trol in the world has been pushed.

Avery has sur­vived, even thrived, dur­ing her uni­ver­si­ty appli­ca­tion process.  She’s endured and even enjoyed her inter­views, and has retained her sense of humor, if not entire­ly her ener­gy lev­el.  She NEEDS a break, plen­ty of days to sleep and remem­ber to enjoy life.

John’s tri­umphed in his plans to acquire the per­fect plot of land to build our dream home, out­last­ing the most cir­cuitous of coun­cil plan­ners.  2015 will bring build­ing drawings!

I’ve rung my last Eng­lish bell of 2014, at a love­ly wed­ding.  Who could have dreamed, near­ly four years ago when I first pulled a rope, that I would be able to be part of some­one’s most impor­tant day?

We’ve tak­en a deep breath and dec­o­rat­ed for Christ­mas.  What could be more beau­ti­ful, and uplifting?

Every year, the old orna­ments take me back to my child­hood.  How kind of my moth­er to take apart my baby crib’s mobile to give me this beauty?

What could be more evoca­tive than gar­lic, to get your hol­i­day gas­tro­nom­ic juices flowing?

Christ­mas in Lon­don would­n’t be Christ­mas with­out the skat­ing rink, of course…

I’ve been able to relax for a few days with the cook­book project, to cre­ate a cou­ple of fan­tas­tic new dish­es!  Tiny, tiny squash­es to cook with a creamy, gar­licky, Parme­san sauce and sur­round with sauteed scal­lops and girolle mushrooms?

And one tired evening with a piz­za ordered in made us all frown in dis­ap­point­ment, and for me to retreat to the kitchen to invent a piz­za with — instead of a toma­to sauce — a creamy truf­fled sauce inspired by the squash dish!  You can put ANY­THING on this piz­za, but be sure to make the crust with the love­ly, smoky water infused with the dried truffles.

John has come up with the ulti­mate Christ­mas gift for Avery and me.  Blessed as we are with unusu­al fig­ures — each in our own way! — it’s incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to find shirts that fit prop­er­ly!  Shoul­ders big enough for me will result in a shirt that bil­lows.  Not any­more.  John’s suit­mak­er from bank­ing days gone by has come around to mea­sure us for shirts that will real­ly FIT.  And for no more cost than the Gap, if you can imag­ine.  I just can’t wait.

Of course, what I want des­per­ate­ly to show you is an image of the dar­ling, dar­ling babies I have been priv­i­leged to vis­it, as a Home-Start vol­un­teer.  What fun that would be, to show you their lit­tle faces.  I haven’t even mind­ed the end­less parade of upper-res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es that have been my gift from my win­tery time with them.  Sit­ting in a room full of babies in a refur­bished pow­er sta­tion, shout­ing when the heat turns on and then low­er­ing our voic­es when it goes off, wip­ing noses, shar­ing bananas, hold­ing new­borns when our lit­tle 1‑year-olds sud­den­ly seem so sim­ple to care for.  I LOVE it.  But con­fi­den­tial­i­ty rules, of course.

Late nights, with Avery work­ing and me fret­ting over the cook­book’s wan­ing days of pro­duc­tion, we sud­den­ly hear a yowl­ing sound.  From the cold mid­night rain, we pluck Miss Cres­si­da, vis­i­tor kit­ty extraordinaire.

In a hol­i­day sea­son usu­al­ly filled to the brim with fes­tive events, this year we just did­n’t have the ener­gy.  There was too much hap­pen­ing dur­ing the days for us to have the reserves of ener­gy to leave the house.  So in fact, the best thing to do was have peo­ple in.  My beloved graph­ic design­er Briony came for lunch, such a cosy thing to do.

And one night we felt brave enough even to have cher­ished friends in for din­ner!  They’re going through the same uni­ver­si­ty process Avery is, so we all felt com­plete­ly under­stood, and relaxed, and grate­ful to have each oth­er.  Ham, pota­toes dauphi­noise, oranges and choco­late cake.  And just plain happiness.

This after­noon brought the last Lon­don day.  After a few days of utter, utter con­fu­sion and dis­ap­point­ment over the last few admin details of the cook­book, I decamped to my beloved St Mary’s to spend a cou­ple of hours in the qui­et, await­ing cus­tomers for the char­i­ty Christ­mas cards we sell each year.  The tree smelled so spicy, the bell ropes swung tan­ta­lis­ing­ly, and Swedish school chil­dren prac­ticed their Christ­mas songs in the nave.  Heav­en­ly, just to escape life for a moment.

After my hours in church, feel­ing restored, I came home to find that my moth­er-in-law Rose­mary, safe­ly encon­sced a day ahead of us at Red Gate Farm for Christ­mas, had received a very impor­tant box.  “Open it, please!” I said.  And here is what emerged.

The book is real.  Five copies sit in my sit­ting room in Con­necti­cut.  A thou­sand copies will soon sit in sit­ting rooms all over the WORLD!  What a thrilling end to our hol­i­day sea­son in London.

And so tomor­row will take us to Red Gate Farm.  We are all ready to leave our emo­tion­al bag­gage behind us and take our real bag­gage — full of Christ­mas presents! — on the plane in the morn­ing and arrive, ready for the hol­i­day.  Watch this space!