the mad whirl of late June

Just look what a May and June full of rain will do for you!  The beau­ti­ful sumac tree in our gar­den sim­ply fell over from the weight of its wet branch­es and the sog­gy home of its roots.  The tree sur­geon has come to vis­it, cluck­ing sad­ly over the sit­u­a­tion.  “Sumacs are noto­ri­ous­ly shal­low-root­ed,” he said accus­ing­ly, although as far as “noto­ri­ous” goes, shal­low-root­ed is pret­ty inno­cent.  But with a touch­ing faith in the future, the new buds of the sumac flower have adjust­ed to sit­u­a­tion, and have grown to point again toward the sky, what­ev­er the direc­tion of their branches.

Lon­don life has assumed its usu­al June qual­i­ty of watch­ing the days fly off the cal­en­dar, packed full with plays and musi­cals to go to, house­guests to wel­come, din­ner par­ties to host, school vol­un­teer­ing to orga­nize, social work, and of course bell­ring­ing.  I gave a big, fes­tive lun­cheon par­ty for all my ring­ing friends, to cel­e­brate my first anniver­sary ring­ing!  A roast­ed side of salmon, stuffed chick­en thighs in Moroc­can-spiced yogurt, toma­to-moz­zarel­la sal­ad with pine nuts and basil, a huge bowl of cous­cous with pep­pers, olives and grilled hal­lou­mi.  Lau­ra brought a huge choco­late cake!  Much fun was had by all.

It was a bit of a pre­ma­ture cel­e­bra­tion, as the very next day was a mas­sive mile­stone which could have gone pear-shaped: my first Quar­ter Peal!  Forty-one min­utes of sweaty, exhaust­ing, nerve-wrack­ing con­cen­tra­tion, in my beloved tow­er at St Mary’s.  My friend Mon­i­ca, part of the jol­ly band who rang with me on the day, made a beau­ti­ful card for me to com­mem­o­rate the day.

You knew it was com­ing, I knew it was com­ing, but noth­ing could pre­pare me for the nerves on the day!  I kept look­ing at the clock, all through ring­ing for two Sun­day ser­vices, chok­ing down an egg, fold­ing laun­dry, think­ing, “In four hours/three hours/one hour this will all be over.”  We gath­ered in the bellcham­ber, took up our ropes, and in a moment of impos­si­ble ten­sion, heard, “Tre­ble’s going, she’s gone,” and we were off.  There’s some­thing about know­ing you CAN­NOT STOP that makes you long to stop!  I tried to bend my knees, to remem­ber to breathe, but it was all too much com­pared with the sheer pres­sure of keep­ing on ring­ing, pay­ing atten­tion to the pat­tern, being the last “bong” on that Tenor bell every six blows.

And then it was over!  Nev­er were the words from Mike “That’s all” more music to my ears!  And there were John and Avery, open­ing the bellcham­ber door, smil­ing with cham­pagne and cam­eras and lots of laugh­ter!  I could hard­ly hold the glass some­one brought from the cof­fee shop!

What a gid­dy feel­ing!  To think that a year ago I had­n’t even been allowed to make a sound with my bell: all my prac­tic­ing was silent, my bel­l’s clap­per mut­ed so as not to annoy the neigh­bors!  And here I am today, the proud pos­ses­sor of my first Quar­ter Peal with all its stress­es and strains.  “Now you’ll get your fam­i­ly life back,” and “Have you heard enough about bell­ring­ing to last you a life­time?” was some of the teas­ing ban­ter sent John’s way!

Whew.  Sigh of relief.  To think that there are reg­u­lar­ly reports of ringers’ 1000th Quar­ter Peals, in the “Ring­ing World” mag­a­zine.  Right now, just one is enough for me!

I’ve been very busy with my social work fam­i­ly, which is going sim­ply bril­liant­ly.  Some­how, just the pres­ence for a few hours once a week of a per­son NOT in the fam­i­ly, NOT a real social work­er, NOT a doc­tor, but just a per­son who is delight­ed to sit on the floor and play, has been enough to bring some joy to a house­hold under pressure.

All the feel­ings our train­ing taught us to expect have come true.  “But I’m not even DOING any­thing”, “Why would it make a dif­fer­ence to have a stranger there for just a few hours?”  The answer to these is that you can’t quan­ti­fy the pres­ence of a sup­port­ive, cheer­ful per­son, and I was a stranger for about six min­utes in that house­hold.   Home-Start, I am here to tell you, is a tru­ly pro­fes­sion­al, valu­able ser­vice and if you ever think you have time to do it, give them a ring.

And cook­ing?  Of course I have been.  Our new favorite (when Avery was away) is a spicy, Thai-inspired seafood treat.

Shrimp Larb in Lettuce

(serves four)

16 very large King prawns (Brit for shrimp)

1 tbsp peanut oil

1 two-inch length lemon­grass stalk, minced tiny

2 cloves gar­lic, minced with lemon juice and sea salt until pulverized

1 tbsp fish sauce

juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime

zest of 1 lemon

1 shal­lot, minced

6 mint leaves, cut in ribbons

hand­ful cilantro leaves, chopped roughly

lots of fresh black pepper

sea salt to taste

about 8 Bibb or but­ter let­tuce leaves (you could also use endive/chicory spears).

Pull the heads and legs off the raw shrimp.  Heat the oil in a heavy pan and fry the shrimp, in their shells, for 1 minute on one side, then about 30 sec­onds on the sec­ond side or until the shrimp are stiff and pink all over, no longer gray.

Let shrimp cool while you pre­pare the oth­er ingre­di­ents.  Peel the shrimp and chop rough­ly, then mix with all the oth­er ingre­di­ents and serve in let­tuce leaves.

***********

This dish is the light­est thing you will ever eat.  You will want much, much more, so after you’ve made it once you’ll have to decide whether or not to be a glut­ton and dou­ble it next time!  You can also add roast­ed chopped peanuts, hazel­nuts or pine nuts, if you want a bit of… nut.

The long-await­ed Lost Prop­er­ty Sale of Used PE Kit to the incom­ing girls came and went, one sweaty, loud, crowd­ed and lucra­tive day in the Hall at Avery’s school.  I find it incred­i­bly heart­warm­ing that a dozen ladies who must have bet­ter things to do with their time (not to men­tion law degrees, med­ical degrees, etc.; one is an actu­al Rock­et Sci­en­tist) turn up with piles of kit they’ve washed and dried at home, patient­ly to hang them on racks, clus­tered appeal­ing­ly, and stacks of lacrosse sticks and boots lov­ing­ly washed of their mud, and then the new girls come flood­ing in with their moth­ers and fathers, look­ing TINY.  The girls, I mean, not the par­ents.  Our elder­ly mid-teens look like well-worn giants by com­par­i­son with these 11-year-old minia­ture things, so earnest.

What a won­der­ful school it is… a com­bi­na­tion of fright­en­ing­ly accom­plished staff, sur­pass­ing­ly ambi­tious girls, and yet all float­ing around in an atmos­phere of mutu­al sup­port, a crazy sense of humor and a great deal of FUN.  We all just have FUN.

And then there was the Taste of Lon­don, an annu­al adven­ture in Regen­t’s Park where dozens and dozens of top restau­rants get togeth­er under tents and offer tiny “tastes” of their best dish­es.  It’s the equiv­a­lent of eat­ing out at ten of the city’s best places for about £50 each.  Expen­sive yes, but con­sid­er­ing how many ele­phants could go through preg­nan­cy wait­ing for me to go out to din­ner, it’s worth it.  The best, by far?  Nuno Mendes, the genius behind our favorite restau­rant in Lon­don, the Cor­ner Room, turned up with two of the most deli­cious dish­es you will ever be lucky enough to taste: sea bream ceviche with fen­nel,  and Iberi­co pork roast served (unusu­al­ly) medi­um rare with seafood bread pud­ding.  Yes, “seafood bread pud­ding”!  The mag­i­cal man took out time to speak with us.

How heav­en­ly to be giv­en such beau­ti­ful food — Mendes’s secret is to put togeth­er unex­pect­ed fla­vor and tex­ture sen­sa­tions with­out being flash, sil­ly, or just wrong, as so many “dar­ing” chefs end up being.  His dish­es sim­ply WORK, no mat­ter how out­landish some of the com­po­nents may sound.  Seafood bread pud­ding!  Go to the Cor­ner Room, do (I’ve said it before!).

Here’s what else we ate, and the restau­rants and chefs.  I would hearti­ly rec­om­mend them ALL: Bar­be­coa (Jamie Oliv­er, pulled pork shoul­der, BBQ sauce with cole slaw), Pollen Street Social (Jason Ather­ton, avo­ca­do, crab, sweet­corn par­fait), Rhodes 24 (Gary Rhodes, white toma­to soup), Whitechapel Gallery (Angela Hart­nett, crispy salt and pep­per squid with chilli and pars­ley oil), The Savoy Grill (shrimp, cele­ri­ac and cucum­ber sal­ad with romaine and a Cae­sar dress­ing), Maze (black pep­per squid), Asia de Cuba (Scot­tish salmon ceviche, with salt­ed avo­ca­do hela­do, spicy coconut milk and bird’s eye chilli pep­pers), Coq d’Ar­gent (Mikael Weiss, foie gras ter­rine with mush­room mousse, pear and gin­ger chut­ney), Le Gavroche (Michel Roux, Jr, smoked var salmon with cream cheese and chives and truf­fle dressing).

Deli­cious.

And then… I got a bad oys­ter.  One bad oys­ter.  It’s a lot worse than one bad apple, I can tell you that.  We got home, and after rav­ing some more about the amaz­ing expe­ri­ence we had had, Avery came home from school to hear it all told again, and I sud­den­ly real­ized I did not want to hear one more WORD about food.  Sev­er­al hours of mis­ery, an unpleas­ant night.  The oys­ter was the only thing John did­n’t share, so it was the cul­prit.  But I did not let it spoil my hap­py mem­o­ries of Taste of Lon­don.  It’s well worth plan­ning your June so you can go.

As for our cul­tur­al lives, we’d high­ly rec­om­mend “Posh,” a rather shock­ing social-com­men­tary play about a men’s social club at Oxford.  It’s reput­ed­ly based on a club to which David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris John­son belonged years ago.  I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s about 10 impos­si­bly beau­ti­ful and priv­i­leged young men tak­ing advan­tage of their priv­i­leges.  The best line?  “I start­ed to go behind the vel­vet rope keep­ing peo­ple out of the din­ing room, and one of the Nation­al Trust ladies told me I could­n’t go back there, it was pri­vate.  And I said, ‘This is MY HOUSE!’ ”

And one last din­ner par­ty before the sum­mer is upon us.  Our gor­geous friends John and Suzanne from next door, Avery’s friend Melanie and her beau­ti­ful mom Eliz­a­beth, and our bril­liant Sarah, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty tour guide of last year, now our firm friend… a won­der­ful time was had by all.

And for once in my life, I man­aged to make a home­ly, slow-cooked dish PRET­TY.  I tried so hard!  Here’s slow-braised ox cheeks, cooked all after­noon in Stout and toma­toes and gar­lic and mush­rooms… then all I had to do was strain the sauce and add pret­ty veg­eta­bles and lux­u­ri­ous mash.  I was so pleased!

And it tast­ed deli­cious.  Rich, hearty, com­plex fla­vors.  Don’t be put off by “cheeks.”  Think of it as appre­ci­at­ing the whole animal.

As the month winds down, we start think­ing about “home.”  Avery smiled when I said this. “You mean you think of it as ‘home’?”  I guess I do.  No mat­ter that we live here for much more of the year, and that in any case my fam­i­ly are scat­tered all over Indi­ana, Iowa and Con­necti­cut.  Some­how our lit­tle farm­house, pro­tect­ed by its white pick­et fence and tow­er­ing maple trees, is “home.”

Red Gate Farm.  It’s a place of blue skies and hot days (as opposed to the grey skies and sweater-requir­ing weath­er that is Lon­don “sum­mer”).  Of course I adore my adopt­ed home­land and it has made me very wel­come.  But it’s beau­ti­ful to go “home.”  It’s corn on the cob, crab sal­ad, steamed lob­sters, farmer’s mar­ket toma­toes, fresh warm peach­es, new-laid eggs.  It’s “home friends,” whose lives we peek in on dur­ing the school year, whose kids get impos­si­bly huge in the inter­ven­ing months, and yet with the com­fort­ing same­ness of spir­it we look for­ward to all winter.

It’s sprin­klers and tram­po­lines and ten­nis EVERY DAY and fried shrimp and lots of Amer­i­can flags and “Days of Our Lives” on the kitchen tele­vi­sion while I cook.  Records on the old-fash­ioned record play­er we’ll bor­row from Anne and David, play­ing Simon and Gar­funkel.  It’s ring­ing in a con­vent tow­er in upstate New York, instead of my lit­tle Eng­lish vil­lage church.

It’s change, I sup­pose.  A chance to leave behind the par­tic­u­lar joys and stress­es of our Lon­don life for a few weeks, to take up the joys and stress­es of Red Gate Farm.

Watch this space for tales of our Amer­i­can adventures.