the fran­tic month of June

It’s been a per­fect mael­strom of events here in our Lon­don lives.  All the seeds I’ve plant­ed through­out the year some­how come up as reg­u­lar­ly as our June laven­der, every year.  This par­tic­u­lar June some unusu­al blos­soms appeared.

How many peo­ple can say they’ve rung bells for an Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury?  Well, I have, as it turns out.

As part of the ongo­ing cel­e­bra­tions of the 800th anniver­sary of the sign­ing of the Magna Car­ta, the most recent­ly retired Arch­bish­op, Rowan Williams, came to St Mary’s to offer a ser­mon.  It was a gala occa­sion.  We “rang him in,” and then as I was walk­ing my bike around from the back of the church, where the bell cham­ber door is, this is the sight that greet­ed me.

This par­tic­u­lar Arch­bish­op is dear to my heart for a num­ber of rea­sons: his lib­er­al think­ing about women and gay bish­ops, his deep under­stand­ing of Islam, his new posi­tion as Mas­ter of Mag­da­lene Col­lege, Cam­bridge, and: he mar­ried William and Kate!

I paused to see the pageantry of his arrival at St Mary’s, feel­ing self-con­scious that I was ped­alling away rather than stay­ing for his ser­mon.  But he looked twin­kling­ly at me and gave a slight smile, then entered the packed church.

That was a very cool moment for me.

We’ve had my very last “MIV Sale,” which sounds as if we’re sell­ing the MIVs (first-year stu­dents at Avery’s school), but real­ly means we’re sell­ing lacrosse sticks, masks, boots and dra­ma shoes to the incom­ing MIVs at their Wel­come Tea.  It’s such a warm, cosy event, at which I tra­di­tion­al­ly meet the new moth­ers who will be the lat­est recruits to Lost Prop­er­ty in the autumn.  Many moth­ers have told me over the years that meet­ing me at the Tea was their first intro­duc­tion to the school, and it set the tone for wel­come and warmth.  I took a moment in the emp­ty Old Library, scene of the Sale, before all the clob­ber arrived.  What hap­py times I have spent in that sun­ny, ele­gant room: Par­ents’ Guild meet­ings around these tables, dec­o­rat­ing for the Christ­mas Fair, Par­ents’ Evenings hear­ing our daugh­ter’s work praised.

Last week saw John and me in that very room again, sip­ping sparkling water and greet­ing fel­low vol­un­teers, at the High Mis­tress’s thank- you meet­ing with all of us.  Sev­en years of giv­ing time, effort, mon­ey, and love to that school have come to an end for us, unbelievably.

I’ve been unit­ed with my lat­est Home-Start fam­i­ly — a big one this time, lots of chil­dren who clam­or for my lis­ten­ing ear, my wel­com­ing lap!  How I wish I could tell you about them, show them to you.  They are my fifth fam­i­ly, and I could­n’t be hap­pi­er.  This turns out to be lit­er­al­ly true: of course most of the world’s atten­tion to this fan­tas­tic char­i­ty is on the impact our work has on the fam­i­lies we sup­port, but Home-Start just sent all its vol­un­teers a 37-page study on a sur­pris­ing sub­ject: the impact of Home-Start on the lives of the vol­un­teers.  The conclusion?

“The great­est jour­ney of change was in the vol­un­teers’ self-con­fi­dence, the mean score at the start of train­ing was 2.90 and increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly to 4.50. There was found to be a sig­nif­i­cant change over time in the vol­un­teers’ sense of use­ful­ness, aware­ness of oth­ers, con­fi­dence in own iden­ti­ty and look­ing for­ward in life. The mea­sures of both phys­i­cal and men­tal health for the vol­un­teers improved dur­ing their time volunteering.”

I can absolute­ly attest to this result.  Being one of those peo­ple who can be a bit anx­ious, a big moody, a bit self-absorbed, one of my sov­er­eign reme­dies for these feel­ings is to arrange a meet­ing with my Home-Start fam­i­ly.  It’s absolute­ly impos­si­ble to feel neg­a­tive when in the pres­ence of a gag­gle of friend­ly, smil­ing lit­tle people.

To be a more use­ful vol­un­teer, I’ve signed up for a three-day course in pedi­atric first aid.

You might won­der — is this qual­i­fi­ca­tion per­haps 18 years or so late, in my life?  Yes indeed.  Avery some­how sur­vived her entire child­hood with­out my being able to do any­thing to save her, should she have need­ed sav­ing.  To be truth­ful, I nev­er even learned to take her tem­per­a­ture prop­er­ly.  I remem­ber turn­ing up at her New York pedi­a­tri­cian with a fever­ish child.  “What’s her tem­per­a­ture, Kris­ten?” her suave French doc­tor asked. “I don’t know!  Too hot!”

So this skill is def­i­nite­ly one whose time has come, giv­en how much time I spend with my cur­rent Home-Start fam­i­ly, my for­mer Home-Start fam­i­ly (now dear friends of mine), and Home-Start play­group.  I’ve had just the one les­son and I can tell you, I now feel cer­tain that some­one on every bus jour­ney I take is about to choke on a grape.

Of course, the kit­ties, Avery’s main­stay through­out this end­less, stress­ful month of exams, have been much in evi­dence.  To John’s cha­grin, all of them have learned Tacy’s trick of drink­ing from his water glass.  Keechie’s thirst (with a full dish of clean water at her dis­pos­al at all times, of course) knows no impediments.

Vis­i­tor kit­ty extra­or­di­naire Cres­si­da is loy­al to Avery and comes round often, leav­ing drifts of her impos­si­bly long fur every­where.  Bet­ter she vis­its in the garden.

Food, of course, rears its deli­cious head every June, when John and I find our­selves tak­ing up our tick­ets to “Taste of Lon­don.”  Every year I look for­ward great­ly to this after­noon of glut­tony, and this year, under a bright blue sky, the food did not disappoint.

Sweet­breads “pop­corn” with Worces­ter­shire mousse!

These were crunchy, soft, savoury.  Made me want to buy some sweet­breads and start experimenting.

What could be bet­ter than ceviche of scal­lops?  With dain­ty pick­led cucum­ber towers.

The best dish, we thought?  Crab and sin­gle-malt scotch soup, with a crab and cold but­ter “lol­lipop.”

The con­cept of this dish is deeply pleas­ing: it’s a very hot soup, into which you dip a very cold “lol­lipop” on a stick.  The lol­lipop con­sists of white crab, beau­ti­ful­ly blend­ed with but­ter and chilled. When you stir the lol­lipop in the soup, it melts and dis­pers­es its crab in a but­tery wave through­out the whole dish.  Just amaz­ing.  I shall cer­tain­ly try a ver­sion of this for us, very soon.

But fun­ni­ly enough, the dish that served as the most imme­di­ate inspi­ra­tion to me was a dish we did­n’t even sam­ple at Taste!  I saw the title “Prawn Burg­er” too late: we were com­plete­ly stuffed!  But it was just the work of a moment to give it a think and come up with a quite per­fect recipe.

Thai Shrimp Burgers

(serves four)

1 lb/450g raw shrimp

1/2 cup/30g Panko breadcrumbs

zest of 1 lime

zest of 1 lemon

1 medi­um-hot red chilli, fine­ly chopped

1 stalk lemon­grass, fine­ly chopped

1‑inch knob gin­ger, grated

2 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly chopped

hand­ful chives, fine­ly chopped

hand­ful cilantro/coriander, leaves only, fine­ly chopped

juices of lime and lemon

tiny squirt clear honey

1 tbsp Worces­ter­shire sauce

1/2 tsp fish sauce

1/2 tsp mirin

plen­ty fresh black pepper

sprin­kle sea salt

4 bread rolls

3 tbsps mayonnaise

squirt hot chilli sauce, to taste

4 hand­fuls arugula/rocket

In a food proces­sor, pulse the shrimp until the tex­ture of ground meat.  Tip into a largeish bowl and sprin­kle on all the ingre­di­ents up to the juices.  In a small bowl, mix the juices, hon­ey, Worces­ter­shire and fish sauces and mirin, then pour over the shrimp and mix every­thing well.  Form into four burg­ers and sprin­kle with the pep­per and salt.  Set in fridge, cov­ered with plas­tic wrap, for at least an hour, but up to six.

Heat your grill to 400F/200C and grill four about 5 min­utes per side.  More reli­able than tim­ing is the way the burg­er feels.  Pressed with your fin­ger­tip, it should have the resis­tance of the tip of your nose.  Err on the side of cook­ing longer as you real­ly don’t want under­cooked shrimp.  At the end of the cook­ing time, cut the rolls in half, remove as much of the inside bread as pos­si­ble and save for bread crumbs lat­er.  Grill the rolls cut side down till crisp.

Mix the may­on­naise and chilli sauce to the hot­ness you like.  On each open roll, pack in the arugu­la.  Top with the burg­ers and a dol­lop of spicy mayo, and close with the top half of the roll.

*******

Oh, the fla­vors of this burg­er!  Fresh, spicy, exot­ic.  And the tex­ture: soft, but firm enough to sur­vive their expo­sure on the grill.  What a good idea these burg­ers are.  I can pic­ture doing them VERY tiny, on a let­tuce leaf, as an appe­tiz­er for a din­ner party.

I would have tak­en them with me for EITHER of the glo­ri­ous Lost Prop­er­ty lunch­es that have been giv­en for me, but… I was­n’t allowed to bring any­thing to EITHER of them!  First, my dar­ling friend Fiona host­ed our whole group, all the cur­rent vol­un­teers.  Oh, the gor­geous food, the laugh­ter, the remem­bered fun of dirty lacrosse boots find­ing their mates.  What a gift Lost Prop­er­ty has been to me, all these sev­en years: a rea­son to be in school and see Avery, a seat at the Par­ents’ Guild meet­ing, a way to be part of that won­der­ful, won­der­ful school.

And their delight­ful gift to me: this sweet bag, signed by them all.  To help keep me organised!

And then dear Emma, my old­est friend from Lost Prop­er­ty, gave anoth­er lunch for a small group of us rep­re­sent­ing the past and the future.  How lucky I am to know that my beloved group of vol­un­teers will be cared for by Fiona and Rebecca.

Oh, the menu!  Roast­ed salmon with spinach and aspara­gus, quinoa with man­go and pome­gran­ate, toma­toes with mint and pre­served lemon, all round­ed off with an incred­i­ble lemon meringue ice cream and apri­cot tart.

There is sim­ply noth­ing more com­fort­ing than the com­pa­ny of like-mind­ed friends in times of big life changes — say­ing good­bye to the school that has been such a joy for all of us.  These are friends with old­er chil­dren who can reas­sure me that life goes on, friends with younger chil­dren who are still deep in the throes of all the hard work and deci­sion-mak­ing that results in an adult child.

It was a won­der­ful afternoon.

And our child is adult.  We turned up at school for “Vale­dic­tion,” the Eng­lish ver­sion of grad­u­a­tion.  The rea­son that “grad­u­a­tion” does­n’t apply is sim­ple, and rather dia­bol­i­cal.  Avery’s exam results don’t come through until mid-August, and uni­ver­si­ty offers are no more than that: they are offers, con­tin­gent on those exam results.  Now, there is no doubt that Avery will do just fine on her results, and she’ll be off to Oxford in the autumn as planned.  But until those results come through, there’s real­ly no clo­sure.  The school has in recent years come to realise that par­ents (per­haps par­tic­u­lar­ly Amer­i­can par­ents) like a bit of fuss, so they invit­ed us all to school, into the apt­ly-named “Great Hall,” to thank the girls for their hard work, the par­ents for their time and support.

What an emo­tion­al after­noon.  We sat with dear, dear friends, par­ents of Avery’s clos­est friends, on either side of us, I clutch­ing a tis­sue in the cer­tain expec­ta­tion that I would cry (I did, as qui­et­ly as I could).  Tutor group by tutor group, the girls crossed the stage to shake the High Mis­tress’s hand and receive a book and a brooch with the school crest.  Their future plans were announced.  The High Mis­tress spoke, then the Mas­ter of the Wor­ship­ful Com­pa­ny of Mer­cers, the own­ers of the school, spoke (she’s a lady, for the first time in 700 years).  The Pres­i­dent of the Mer­cers spoke.  The Head Girl spoke.  Through it all, I could only try not to become over­whelmed by the mem­o­ries of the lit­tle girl, eyes wide with antic­i­pa­tion, fear and delight, that we deliv­ered to this mag­i­cal insti­tu­tion sev­en years ago.

The next evening, she dressed up for the Leavers’ Ball, a swishy affair at a Pic­cadil­ly hotel.  How love­ly she looked.

At the close of this event­ful month, we all take a deep breath of grat­i­tude for all the plant­ed seeds — Avery most of all — and the beau­ti­ful blooms they have become.