Tak­en At the Flood!

Who knew a sim­ple spring­time “walk” along the bike path by the Thames could result in such per­il as we found today!  I’ll begin at the beginning.

The day was blowy, full of huge snowflakes that melt­ed as they fell, but made a love­ly pic­ture.  “Let’s go for a walk,” we decid­ed.  These dai­ly walks are the only thing stand­ing between us and end­less­ly bal­loon­ing waist­lines, in this no-ten­nis weath­er.  So we set out.

Our house is just a road­’s length away from the love­ly riv­er, one of the perks of our neigh­bor­hood.  The riv­er is home to end­less row­ing races, sail­boat dis­plays, mal­lards, swans, pigeons and even seag­ulls, whirling dra­mat­i­cal­ly over­head.  It’s just lovely.

“Whoa!  Look how high the riv­er is,” John said, as we not­ed a pud­dle on the edge of the path.  “I’ve nev­er seen it that high before.”

We turned to the right, ready for our mile-long trek.  And here is what we found.

“It’s actu­al­ly what I would call ‘flood­ing,’ ” I said in amaze­ment.  We have walked that path near­ly every day for two years and this was a first.

As we round­ed the first bend, slosh­ing through the pud­dles in our trusty Welling­ton boots, thread­ing our way through the occa­sion­al dry spot, we looked up to find THIS sight.

Good heav­ens, Gwen­dolyn!  (“Impor­tance of Being Earnest” quote there.)  “Should we turn back?” I asked, a bit alarmed since we were at the begin­ning of the walk, really.

“No, it’s fine!  As long as the water does­n’t go above our Wellies, it’ll be an adven­ture!” John said.  Famous last words.

Read­ers, there were TIDAL EDDIES as we walked along.  Not to men­tion the bit­ing wind and resid­ual snowflakes.  We passed a group of boys at the near­by school, watched over by a stern school­mas­ter.  He called to us over the cast-iron fence that ran around the school, “Don’t get swept away, seri­ous­ly!  Stay close to the fence.”  I began to wor­ry, and with good rea­son as the freez­ing water quick­ly closed, briefly, over the tops of my boots.  EEEK!

There were some scary moments, truth be told.  Well, John claims he was­n’t scared, but I was.  Feel­ing the tide pulling at my feet, occa­sion­al­ly stum­bling over a root in the path, far below the sur­face of the water, feel­ing the wind buf­fet my face, not know­ing how much deep­er it could get before the mile was over…  “I can hear the head­lines now,” I moaned.  “Expa­tri­ate school­girl orphaned by idiot par­ents in local flash floods”…

“I can see the bridge!” John yelled.  “Not too far to go, now.”  We stopped for a breather on a handy bench, perched on a stone slab above the fray.

Final­ly, we came to the bridge, under which a patrol boat was JUST able to pass, hav­ing low­ered their anten­na to do so.  I’ve nev­er seen such a thing as that riv­er, this afternoon.

Home, into dry clothes and thick socks, to con­coct the per­fect com­fort din­ner.  I’ve made this once before, so I can report that it is just about the most deli­cious, sim­ple, inex­pen­sive thing you might ever get out of a pack­age of chick­en thighs.

Slow-braised Chick­en Thighs in White Wine, Bay Leaf and Mushrooms

(serves 4)

8 chick­en thighs, bone-in, skin on

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 medi­um white onion, sliced

1/4 cup each: white wine, olive oil, chick­en stock

juice of 1/2 lemon

plen­ty of fresh black pepper

4 bay leaves

dozen chest­nut mush­rooms, sliced

1 tbsp cream

Place the chick­en thighs skin up in a nice heavy bak­ing dish.  Scat­ter over the gar­lic and onion.  Mix the wine, oil, stock and lemon juice in a small bowl, then pour over the chick­en.  Sprin­kle the black pep­per on top and tuck the bay leaves in with the onions and gar­lic.  Sprin­kle on the mush­rooms.  Cov­er the whole thing tight­ly with foil.

Braise in a medi­um oven, about 325F/160C, for two hours.  Remove the foil and up the heat to about 450F/225C.  Roast in this oven for 30 min­utes, or until the skin of the thighs is gold­en and crisp.  Pour the juices and veg­eta­bles from the dish into a fry­ing pan (dis­card the bay leaves) and add a table­spoon or so of cream, whisk­ing to  mix.  This will be the best gravy you have ever, ever tasted.

***************

This din­ner, served with pota­to puree and cheesy spinach, was con­sumed for the first few moments in total silence.  Then we all start­ed to talk at once.  “They’re so ten­der!  And this gravy!”  Even Avery who is no fan of meat con­tain­ing bones, was speech­less with delight.  When we had fin­ished eat­ing she picked up her plate and said spon­ta­neous­ly, “Thank you for that.”  I always know she is appre­cia­tive of her din­ners, but this was very wel­come to my ears.  And it cost almost noth­ing, per­haps $6 in total.  My advice: make twice as much, because they would have been ter­rif­ic, left­over, for lunch the next day.

This tri­umph capped a week that had been full of activ­i­ty.  I had invit­ed the won­der­ful­ly warm, cosy Rec­tor of my bell­ring­ing church to lunch, so I could ask him lots of ques­tions of a spir­i­tu­al nature.  He gra­cious­ly accept­ed, say­ing, “I only wish MORE of my work were dis­cus­sions of any­thing spir­i­tu­al, rather than admin, paper­work and deal­ing with peo­ple who are SURE they could think of a bet­ter to do absolute­ly every­thing!”  We sat down to chick­en meat­balls in a sour cream sauce loaded with papri­ka and a touch of brandy.  There was a love­ly fen­nel sal­ad with an anchovy dress­ing (one of my lat­est obses­sions) to go along­side.  I want­ed to feed him up so he could with­stand my queries.

We had a love­ly after­noon.  For once, the sun shone bright­ly, warm­ly through our glass ceil­ing.  We talked about the way he came to be involved with reli­gion — although he isn’t too keen on the idea of “reli­gion,” shar­ing the atti­tude of so many of my spir­i­tu­al friends who pre­fer notions of “belief” and a “rela­tion­ship with God” to the notion of an organ­i­sa­tion.  But of course, he IS the organ­i­sa­tion, so he must fol­low the ter­mi­nol­o­gy and struc­tures.  “It is a shame that our human minds can­not encom­pass a being that isn’t real­ly a being, and cer­tain­ly isn’t a ‘he’ or ‘she,’ ” he mused.  “God is much more than that, but we can’t grasp the true nature of God so we call him Our Father, and refer to Jesus as his son.  But it’s much big­ger than that.”

We talked about what hap­pens after death.  I have been deeply involved late­ly with a friend who has suf­fered a ter­ri­ble bereave­ment, try­ing to find bet­ter ways of lis­ten­ing, learn­ing not to talk to her or at her, but just to lis­ten, and she has very strong beliefs about where her beloved is now.  She real­ly feels her pres­ence in many com­fort­ing ways.  “What do YOU believe hap­pens after we die?” I asked.  He sighed and looked out at the gar­den, which is com­ing back to life after win­ter.  “My answer to your ques­tion is, I have no idea.  No idea what­so­ev­er.  But in the face of some­thing that can’t be proved or dis­proved, I choose belief.  I choose to believe that some­thing lingers, because it com­forts me.”

“What if that’s just wish­ful think­ing?” I asked.  “What’s the dif­fer­ence between wish­ful think­ing and belief?”

“Not much,” he answered.  “But in the face of nev­er, ever being able to know for sure, to my mind there is noth­ing wrong at all with wish­ful thinking.”

How won­der­ful.  I was thrilled by his unabashed agnos­ti­cism.  The whole expe­ri­ence of talk­ing with him was like going back to the very best kind of school with a teacher you can ask absolute­ly any­thing.  AND he liked my chick­en meatballs.

Part­ly my inter­est in speak­ing with him was prompt­ed by the amaz­ing amount of time I have been spend­ing in church­es recent­ly, up and down the Home Coun­ties, ring­ing beloved bells.

I find it absolute­ly impos­si­ble to be sur­round­ed by so much sheer age, longevi­ty of insti­tu­tions, mau­solea con­tain­ing mor­tal remains going back hun­dreds of years, and be immune to the sug­ges­tion of belief.

After he had gone, with a hug and a kiss and a hand­shake for John (who came in on the tail end of our talk), we went for a long walk and talked about what I had learned.

“Agnos­tic” cov­ers my feel­ings pret­ty well, set along­side the life-affirm­ing beliefs of many of my friends, and the absolute athe­ism of my hus­band and daugh­ter.  Talk­ing with the Rec­tor had­n’t so much changed those feel­ings I have, as giv­en them a struc­ture.  I like very much the idea that we can choose what to believe.  It’s not as if we’re look­ing at a blue sky and “choos­ing to believe” it’s orange.  We’re star­ing into a total abyss and try­ing to find some sense in it.

The most I could say for myself, as I lay try­ing to get to sleep that night, was that at least I live a life — most of the time! — that a per­son of what­ev­er faith would try to.  I take care of my fam­i­ly and friends as best I can, and reach out to strangers when I get a chance.  That’s about the most I can say.  One of my favorite Scot­tish writ­ers said of a char­ac­ter in her nov­el, “She may not have believed in God, but I’m pret­ty sure God believed in her.”

As for bell­ring­ing, I’ve real­ly turned a cor­ner, I say cau­tious­ly!  I’ve learned to do two things — to “tre­ble,” which means lead the band in their mer­ry ways, and to “cov­er,” which means to fall in at the very end and bring the mer­ry ways to a close.  This makes me much more use­ful than I was when all I could do was to mem­o­rize a pat­tern.  Every­one says that ring­ing involves three things: lis­ten­ing to the sound of your bell, look­ing around the cham­ber to see which rope you should fol­low, and count­ing the places you are meant to be in.  Sud­den­ly, all three of these things are hap­pen­ing at the same time and I’m get­ting bet­ter each week.  How I LOVE it.

And of course I can’t tell you any­thing about my social work, except that say that it is an absolute dream hav­ing very small chil­dren sit­ting heav­i­ly in my lap, singing “The Wheels On the Bus,” “Twin­kle, Twin­kle,” and  host of Eng­lish songs that I am hav­ing to learn very quick­ly!  The sound of many small chil­dren singing in Eng­lish accents is immense­ly enter­tain­ing.  What a respon­si­bil­i­ty it is, the care of oth­er peo­ple’s chil­dren who are in need of a lit­tle com­fort and fun.  It makes me ter­ri­bly hap­py that they now auto­mat­i­cal­ly laugh uproar­i­ous­ly when I come into the house.  How I wish, wish my bril­liant child-psy­chol­o­gist dad were here to tell of my adven­tures.  Giv­en his utter lack of sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, he could eas­i­ly say, “Yeah, well, give it time and the thrill will be gone,” but in my heart of hearts I think he would be proud of me.

Feed­ing the fam­i­ly beck­ons, so I must love you and leave you.  My heav­en­ly chick­en dish awaits.  Enjoy your own sup­per.  And mind the flooding!