change­able Lon­don summer

Whew!

What a dif­fer­ence 24 hours makes.  Yes­ter­day after­noon I had just returned, hot and sweaty from the bike ride home from Avery’s school and the Lost Prop­er­ty sale prepa­ra­tions.  I was HOT.  Almost unbear­ably so!  And the moment I parked my bike at the door, I real­ized my lock was gone from my basket.

“But I tucked it in espe­cial­ly tight­ly so it would­n’t bounce out!” I wailed to John.

“Appar­ent­ly not tight­ly enough,” he said, and back out I went.

Under a blaz­ing blue mid­day sky, not a cloud in sight, my hair smashed wet­ly to my head under the hel­met, I ped­aled off, retrac­ing my steps, annoy­ing all the oncom­ing auto dri­vers who did not want me on their side of the road, but I could­n’t look for my lock unless I was right in their faces.  “Per­haps it will be just along the road to home,” I thought hope­ful­ly.  “Or just com­ing off the bridge.”

Alas, it was prac­ti­cal­ly direct­ly in front of Avery’s school.  Weari­ly I picked it up, burn­ing hot under the sun, packed it up in my bas­ket and came back home, where the after­noon seemed only to get hot­ter and hotter.

Avery came home.  “Turn off the Aga!” she emailed me in des­per­a­tion, as we all tried not to think about how hot the kitchen had become.

It was very hard to sleep!  The warm hus­band and cats cud­dling affec­tion­ate­ly near­by were just plain HOT.

This morn­ing was more of the same.  I ped­aled to school to work at the real day of the Sale — yes­ter­day being the day the girls come by and squeal, “That’s my hood­ie!” and take things away for free.  Today we were after cold hard cash.  And part­way through the hour, there was a crash from out­side.  “Kris­ten, you did­n’t ride your bike, did you?”  And thun­der and light­ning very very fright­en­ing!  The heav­ens sim­ply opened.

What would I have done with­out my dear friend Sal­ly who looked at me kind­ly and said, “I think I can fit all the bags for the char­i­ty shops, plus the bike, plus the girl.”  So in a rush we were off, and my dears, the RAIN!  Sim­ply pound­ing.  In the round­about a flash of light­ning appeared straight before us.  “What would I have done on my bike?”

Home grate­ful for the respite, hap­py for a quick tuna melt on the now-rather-wel­come warm Aga!  And a vis­it to my pal the fox skull on the gar­den table, sport­ing a rather men­ac­ing froth­ing jaw, rem­nants of Avery’s friends feed­ing him whipped cream over the weekend!

And the air has cooled.

To think that four days ago, we were all reach­ing for our thick­est cardi­gans, and yes­ter­day was the warmest day since 2006!  That’s Lon­don for you.  Now if the rain will only hold off long enough for me to get in a quick bike ride to the vil­lage for some din­ner ingredients.

How can one sin­gle month con­tain so many peo­ple, so many con­ver­sa­tions, so many lunch­es and din­ners and plays and school cup­boards full of dirty lacrosse boots?  There is a par­tic­u­lar qual­i­ty to this two-week peri­od in Lon­don life — I should remem­ber the feel­ing from years past, but I am always tak­en by sur­prise.   “Quick!  Hur­ry and see every­one you care about in case you nev­er see them again!”

All this fre­net­ic activ­i­ty, of course, hap­pens because in our life in Lon­don, July means that every­one dis­pers­es like ger­bils let out of a cage.  It’s excit­ing to hear of every­one’s des­ti­na­tions: fam­i­ly homes in Nor­folk, rid­ing camp in France, trips to Paris with glam­orous old­er sis­ters, and we: off to six qui­et weeks at Red Gate Farm, to watch the hydrangea tree come into bloom, let lit­tle Katie across the road show us what it is like to be three years old, reunite with my fam­i­ly, eat sweet corn and toma­toes, crab and lobster.

But in the mean­time, every last activ­i­ty with every last friend must be fit­ted into these busy days.

There was lunch out at the gor­geous Fort­num and Mason with my friend Jil­lian, to cel­e­brate her diplo­ma from the Open University!

She is an intel­lec­tu­al friend of the first order, one for whom I must reach down into my art historian/professorial past to make intel­li­gent con­ver­sa­tion, to lis­ten to her tales of achieve­ments in Greek myth.  All over our plates of pot­ted duck with goose­ber­ry con­fit, poached sea trout with rib­bons of cucumber.

On Tues­day Avery report­ed that her dear friend Dan­ni was sick, had in fact gone home ear­ly from school.  “How about mak­ing some chick­en soup for her?” I asked, which offer met with an instant YES, because what­ev­er doubts I may ever have about my cook­ing, my chick­en soup is exempt.  It could cure any­one of anything.

So she and I head­ed off to a com­mu­ni­ty play, tak­ing the bus into the vil­lage on the most beau­ti­ful sum­mer evening you can imag­ine: the duck­lings on the sparkling pond, the peo­ple pic­nick­ing and toss­ing balls to dogs, super­vis­ing lit­tle chil­dren scooter­ing on the path.  “We can pick up some chick­en for Dan­ni in the shop on the way home,” I assured Avery.

We turned up at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre to col­lect our tick­ets.  “There is no one else here,“I hissed.  “Is that a bad sign?”  (John had flat­ly refused to accom­pa­ny us, his expe­ri­ences of com­mu­ni­ty the­atre with me being mem­o­rable only for their com­e­dy val­ue — and the plays were NOT comedies.)

A love­ly mid­dle-aged man approached us with a sheaf of pro­grammes in hand.  “We shall see you in about 45 min­utes,” he said gen­tly, and I looked in dis­may at our tick­ets.  8 instead of 7:30!  So off to find chicken.

No luck.  I texted John, off at his com­e­dy (delib­er­ate­ly so) show.  “Please pick up whole chick­en if you can.”

Avery and I sat on a bench by the pond, chat­ting about her musi­cal audi­tions for “Sweet Char­i­ty” at school.  Will my advice to belt out “Hey Big Spender” in full chest voice win the day?  Avery made a draw­ing express­ing what I might sing if I were try­ing out.

And dear read­ers, the play… when I emailed for tick­ets, and the reply came from the direc­tor of the play, my heart did fall a bit.  Again, when I emailed for direc­tions… the direc­tor replied again.  And the man hand­ing out pro­grammes?  Her dad.

“We have to stay for the whole thing,” Avery whis­pered.  “No mat­ter what.  It’s her DAD.”

And while the act­ing was fine, the Amer­i­can accents were, as usu­al, trag­ic.  “Oper­a­tor, get me my moth­er, in Brook­lyn!” the char­ac­ter shouts into the pre­tend phone.  “Brook­lyn?” Avery asked.  “Amar­il­lo, Texas, maybe…” I replied.  Plus just to be picky, on the pay phone the num­ber of coins he inserts at the oper­a­tor’s prompt­ing did not cor­re­spond in any way to any com­bi­na­tion of Amer­i­can coins.  Ah, picky picky.  But I was glad John had­n’t come.

We walked home in the twi­light and put the chick­en in the slow oven to roast, and would you believe how won­der­ful it looked 12 hours lat­er, just wait­ing to be made into soup!

The aro­ma!  I pulled the meat from the bones, cov­ered the bones with good cold water, and set it on to sim­mer, while I made a love­ly sal­ad for my lunch guest, my new friend Elizabeth.

Sal­ad of Roast­ed Beets, Buf­fa­lo Moz­zarel­la, Her­itage Toma­toes and Avocado

(serves 4)

4 small beets, roast­ed, peeled and cut into wedges

1 ball buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la, pulled apart by hand

hand­ful heritage/heirloom toma­toes, halved

1 large avo­ca­do, cut in slices and cov­ered with lemon juice

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tbsp real­ly good extra vir­gin olive oil

sea salt and pepper

Sim­ply arrange all the veg­eta­bles on a pret­ty plat­ter and driz­zle with lemon juice and oil.  Sea­son to taste.

While the soup cooked, I con­coct­ed a real­ly good tuna sal­ad with chick­peas and plen­ty of cel­ery, and then rode into the vil­lage for a cou­ple of fab­u­lous cheeses.  Eliz­a­beth turned up and we spent a com­plete­ly delight­ful cou­ple of hours — “This is the way I like to eat!  Lots of dif­fer­ent things!” she said, as we sat down to get­ting to know each oth­er.  She is a psy­cho­an­a­lyst spe­cial­iz­ing in a field I had to con­fess I had nev­er heard of: how pre­na­tal expe­ri­ences of the moth­er affect the devel­op­ment of a fetus.

“The pre­vail­ing thought, in this the­o­ry, is that doc­tors should not just be ask­ing expec­tant moth­ers if they’re eat­ing and sleep­ing, but how ARE they, in them­selves?  How is the hus­band feel­ing about the com­ing baby?  Is the atmos­phere hap­py?  When my moth­er was preg­nant with me, we lived prac­ti­cal­ly in a com­mune of law stu­dents and their wives, always in and out of one anoth­er’s hous­es.  And as a small child, my favorite feel­ing was being in a house for a hol­i­day, filled with peo­ple, while I lay upstairs, mean­ing to be asleep.”

“You were able to enjoy the peo­ple around you, but you weren’t respon­si­ble for how things were going.” I suggested.

“Exact­ly!” Eliz­a­beth smiled.

“I have the very same fan­ta­sy,” I admit­ted.  I won­der if it is the dream of a lot of moth­ers, so accus­tomed to being in charge of how peo­ple are feel­ing, NOT to be for once.

Final­ly I had to break up our fun, for my final bell­ring­ing les­son of the year with Arnold, who is off to France.  By the time he gets home, I’ll be in America.

And it went beau­ti­ful­ly!  “You have learned far more than I expect­ed, in these ten hours.  I am proud of you,” Arnold said sim­ply.  I am ready for sum­mer.  And I have found a tow­er in which to ring!  All it took was a lit­tle jaunt onto the web­site of the North Amer­i­can Guild of Change Ringers!  An email exchange or two lat­er, I was signed up to ring.  “We have a love­ly group of 11–13-year-olds that you’ll fit in with per­fect­ly!” I was assured, with no hint of irony or embar­rass­ment for me and my inexperience.

And would you believe: when the Tow­er Cap­tain includ­ed me in a mass email to all his ringers, to wel­come me, a cou­ple stepped in and wrote, “We used to ring in your tow­er in Barnes, Kris­ten.  Tell every­one hel­lo for us.”

INCRED­I­BLE!

I met Avery at school, giv­ing the con­tain­er of hot chick­en soup to an amazed Dan­ni.  “She thought we were jok­ing,” Avery said.  Aghast, I replied, “I NEV­ER joke about chick­en soup.”

I accom­pa­nied Avery to an eye doc­tor appoint­ment the next day, field­ing her request after­ward to stop at the phar­ma­cy so she could check out the make­up.  Now I love my daugh­ter, but there is NOTH­ING more tedious than watch­ing some­one try on make­up.  So in one of the lit­tle flights of free­dom that seem to pep­per our lives now all the time, I left her behind and ped­aled home on my bike alone, pon­der­ing how she ever got so old, watch­ing her head into Star­bucks with her own card, to order her own frap­puc­ci­no, make her way to Boots, hop in a taxi at the bus sta­tion, and meet me at home.  Every time I do some­thing like this, I feel my life has been saved when she walks safe­ly in the door.

And off to our dear neigh­bors, James and Susan — he of the gift of rock­et when we first moved in!  We went to them for din­ner, but would you believe what we did before­hand?  We signed our wills.

With them as wit­ness­es.  Very, very creepy.  On speak­er phone with our attor­ney in Iowa.

“Now, have I got you all in one room over there in Eng­land?” came his jovial, Mid­west­ern voice.  “Have you all got pens ready?”  And we signed our wills.  Now any­thing can happen.

A love­ly din­ner after that, with anoth­er cou­ple, com­plete­ly con­ge­nial and the­atri­cal (she was onstage in her youth!).  “What?  You signed your wills and you did­n’t include us?”  A gor­geous had­dock and cod stew, in a clear broth with fen­nel and red pep­pers.  Fresh, light, love­ly.  How lucky we are in our neighbors.

And we’ve hit anoth­er mile­stone.  Did you save any of your clothes from 20 years ago?  Well, in spite of our many thou­sands of moves I have kept back three or four cool things — a slinky black dress from Comme des Gar­cons, bought for a fab­u­lous New Year’s Eve in New York, a red and black plaid Ralph Lau­ren skirt that John bought me when I was in grad­u­ate school.  And a lit­tle brown and white pol­ka-dot­ted jump­suit that I wore on our delayed hon­ey­moon in the Seychelles.

What hap­py mem­o­ries that pho­to evokes: the most beau­ti­ful sun­sets in the world, every night din­ner described by the wait­ers as sim­ply “fish from here.”

And now look who wears the suit.

How could I have been the size of my 14-year-old daugh­ter, when I was a grownup woman of 25?  I sup­pose because I had yet to dis­cov­er cook­ing!  Now I have all I can do, bik­ing and walk­ing and play­ing ten­nis, to work off all the gor­geous meals I can­not imag­ine liv­ing without.

I was vis­it­ed with such a hap­py mem­o­ry of being Avery’s age, my beloved moth­er push­ing aside hang­ers in her clos­et, which smelled sweet­ly of Caleche, look­ing for things SHE had saved from HER past.  “Here is the tweed dress I wore in that pho­to” — she point­ed at the framed pho­to on the wall.  “That was my engage­ment photo.”

Now that dress is in my clos­et upstairs.  It’s love­ly to keep the tra­di­tion going.

Speak­ing of love­ly meals, there is noth­ing for a bit of left­over roast chick­en like a sand­wich with every­thing in the fridge on it.  Bacon, thick slices of toma­toes, a bit of love­ly rich Finn Cheese from Neal’s Yard — a triple cream that will get you reach­ing for your ten­nis rack­et!  Plus horse­rad­ish and sal­sa verde.  Per­fect.

I went on a bit of a food­ie trip to Hol­land Park Road and its envi­rons, on the way to meet­ing my friend Dalia for sushi.  Want the best jar of tuna you’ve ever had in your life?  Try Flott Tuna from Speck in Port­land Road (and get some love­ly creamy bur­ra­ta — super creamy moz­zarel­la ‑while you’re there too).

From there I went onto Lidgates for lamb mince; I had nev­er before ven­tured into this, the most expen­sive of all Lon­don butch­ers, but I could­n’t resist.

What I could resist, how­ev­er, were the SEAG­ULL EGGS!  Can you just imag­ine?  “They are very… strong-tast­ing,” the lady behind the mahogany counter offered.  (“ ‘Strong-tast­ing’ ”? my friend Tri­cia said lat­er.  “They eat TRASH.”)

I told Dalia about these at lunch lat­er, as we shared our poached salmon with radish­es and aspara­gus, our salmon sashi­mi with chives and Ponzu sauce, our steamed spinach with sesame sauce… “Ugh,” she said.  “Let’s not think about it.”  Instead we delved into all the top­ics that make lunch­es with Dalia so refresh­ing.  Bon Jovi (her pas­sion!), her beloved sis­ters, our adored cats (the phone comes out at that point so she can show me, while all I have to show is a pic­ture of seag­ull eggs).  She is a com­plete breath of fresh air.  No hus­band, no chil­dren, she is buoyed by her hatred of con­ven­tion, her love of trav­el, her gen­er­ous love for her friends, her sense of humor.  And it’s always a plea­sure to sit across from her and watch her dark eyes dance.

Sat­ur­day found us on the riv­er at the bat mitz­vah of a friend of Avery’s from pri­ma­ry school.  We all got dressed up, a bit,and I had to sigh with res­ig­na­tion at pass­ing on the torch — if I ever held one! — of cool­ness and fash­ion to my daugh­ter.  Her sense of style!  So unusu­al, so per­son­al.  One day a vision in a vin­tage dress cov­ered with oranges and lemons, and then the next MY black silk tuxe­do trousers and her father’s bow tie!

How I wish that my sec­u­lar life held a spot for an event like a bat mitz­vah for my child!  As a psy­cho­an­a­lyst at our table observed, “It is unique in its com­bi­na­tion of a sense of achieve­ment [learn­ing the Hew­brew and hav­ing a cause to sup­port] and love.  For the rest of her life, Sadie will have events where she cel­e­brates one — grad­u­a­tion for her achieve­ments, a wed­ding for love — but nev­er again will we all gath­er to cel­e­brate BOTH.”  What a won­der­ful idea.  I’d like a chance to sit down and rem­i­nisce with our fam­i­ly about what Avery means to us, what she has accom­plished.  We can only hope she knows, any­way, all the time.

My week end­ed with the very wel­come news that a piece I wrote about my dad, for “Vin­tage Mag­a­zine,” was picked out as mem­o­rable in the week­end Wall Street Jour­nal.  Maybe life is more like that than we real­ize: we might not all get gor­geous par­ties to tell us we’ve done well, or are loved.  But small impor­tant moments are all around us, if we can stop a minute to look at them.  Espe­cial­ly in the busy month of June, when we’re stor­ing up mem­o­ries to last though the long, qui­et summer.