the per­fect day is real­ly very simple

First off, I must tell you that this beau­ti­ful pho­to­graph comes from a very cool food­ie blog you might enjoy, “What We’re Eat­ing. Check it out. It’s writ­ten by an extreme­ly cute cou­ple (?) of peo­ple one of whom cooks, and the oth­er eats, then they talk about it. And they take great photos.

But I digress. My point is, you think hav­ing a per­fect day is an accom­plish­ment, a sort of unusu­al thing that comes about when you’ve set your­self a task and it all works out the way you plan, don’t you? So did I. But I’m think­ing it’s sim­pler than that. Most­ly the per­fec­tion comes in the notic­ing how many pleas­ant things come my way on my aver­age Tues­day, and tak­ing the time to appre­ci­ate them. First of all, the way to start your per­fect day is with fresh-squeezed juice. What­ev­er comes to mind when you’re at the gro­cery: my glass today con­tained blood oranges, ruby red grape­fruit, and clemen­tines. It just makes all oth­er juice, includ­ing “fresh-squeezed” that you buy in the refrig­er­a­tor sec­tion of the gro­cery, taste like noth­ing. Or worse, that sulfur‑y taste of pas­teuri­sa­tion. Go on, squeeze some for your­self tomorrow.

Then some more per­fect­ly ordi­nary things begin to hap­pen. I drop my child off at school, and there’s the miss­ing vio­lin, behind the coat rack, whose absence at home was so dis­turb­ing on the night before the first day back from hol­i­day. And two new gulls have appeared in the school! Tatiana and Isabel­la, already firm­ly called “Bel­la,” found their way into Form Five after the break. The class is get­ting pos­si­bly too big, and we found out that they’re being split up into two groups, alpha­bet­i­cal­ly deter­mined, which has every­one in a tizzy. And who will get the final speak­ing role in “Peter Pan” this sum­mer term, the cov­et­ed Talk­ing Pirate? Only Mrs Bick­ley the Dra­ma Teacher knows for sure, and so far she’s not telling.

Then I climbed the stairs to the very top floor to be read to by what­ev­er four or five lit­tle sev­en-year-olds have been sent my way by Miss Arm­strong, and are they sweet. Scrubbed and fresh from their hol­i­days, the vari­ety and posh­ness of which seem quite stag­ger­ing to me, but then I’m a nice girl from Indi­ana. Athens? Why not. Val d’Is­ere, New York, the south of France, Dublin, Switzer­land for that last-gasp ski trip. So I went to Iowa, is there a prob­lem with that? Their lit­tle pip­ing voic­es are so sweet.

Then a long-over­due tea break with Becky, to catch up on the crazi­ness of our var­i­ous fam­i­ly lives. Is a move immi­nent in their expa­tri­ate lives, and if so, where to? Not a relax­ing thing to think about, but with typ­i­cal grace, Becky ris­es to the occa­sion with­out deliv­er­ing any blows in her domes­tic sphere. Hav­ing been through that myself more than once, I do not envy her. Not to men­tion that hav­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of no Becky is NOT accept­able. I’ll have to have a word with her hus­band’s boss.

And who but me could count among her Per­fect Day activ­i­ties a mam­moth Tesco shop? I do adore to gro­cery shop, espe­cial­ly when I’m all by myself with no wet-blan­ket hus­band to cau­tion me about ingre­di­ents, quan­ti­ties or price. Ha! Even the car got washed as I shopped, not that it mat­ters with all the dis­gust­ing pollen falling all over this town. The flip­side of the gor­geous spring week: the air is sim­ply full of sneeze-mak­ing non­sense. But for about an hour, Emmy looked great.

And seem­ing­ly overnight, flow­ers have appeared in our com­mu­nal gar­den, and all the trees are in bloom. Love­ly (also con­tribut­ing, no doubt, to the sneezing).

Home with Avery and Anna who promised faith­ful­ly to do their home­work. Is there any­thing cosier than tying on an apron to pre­pare din­ner, sur­round­ed by chil­dren dis­cussing their maths prob­lems? I don’t think so. It was an all-five-sens­es after­noon: the smell of but­tered pop­corn, the sound of their lit­tle voic­es and the scrapes of their pens, the sight of all my bowls of cit­rus fruits wait­ing to be juiced, the feel of a nice hus­band’s no-occa­sion kiss on the cheek, and tast­ing my salmon sauce for sea­son­ing… it does­n’t take much to make me hap­py. Actu­al­ly, that’s quite a lot, come to think of it.

Becky popped in to pick up Anna, and we stood around in the kitchen admir­ing the salmon dish and the casse­role of cheesy pota­toes, which recipe I must tweak before I give it to you because I did­n’t realise how fine my grater grates (yes, the Matthew Mac­fadyen Memo­r­i­al Grater! it’s excel­lent), and there was not enough cheese and too much milk. A work in progress, clear­ly. I either need lots more cheese, or a much less fine grater. I’ll let you know.

My per­fect day end­ed with Avery secure in her bath­tub talk­ing about her book of the moment, “A Year Down Yon­der,” which I can­not rec­om­mend high­ly enough, either in book form or the book on tape we have loved. It’s even bet­ter, I think, than the orig­i­nal book in the series of two, “A Long Way From Chica­go.” Richard Peck is a genius at por­tray­ing the life of wartime Indi­ana with a gun-tot­ing, embar­rass­ing but life-chang­ing grand­moth­er for a young girl trans­plant­ed from Chica­go. Your kids will love it. Then it was onto our excel­lent din­ner, although Avery did have some very use­ful sug­ges­tions about the pota­to dish which I am tak­ing under advise­ment. She is becom­ing a very dis­cern­ing eater, pro­vid­ing me with the sug­ges­tions that improved my mush­room soup immense­ly. Thanks, Aves.

Well, our house­hold is busy lis­ten­ing to Avery prac­tice the songs she and her choir­mates will sing at tomor­row’s coun­try wed­ding of the school music teacher! “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose.” It’s actu­al­ly incred­i­bly touch­ing; the teacher invit­ed them to come sing “All Things Bright and Beau­ti­ful,” and they will, but secret­ly the singing teacher taught them this extra song to sur­prise her. I wish we were invit­ed, but alas we are not includ­ed. We’ll have to find some way to keep out of trou­ble. Bor­ough Mar­ket is out, since on a Sat­ur­day it will be a mad­house and in any case I just came from there, hang­ing out with Twig­gy and sip­ping cof­fee from the Mon­mouth Cof­fee Com­pa­ny. I don’t even drink cof­fee nor­mal­ly, and nei­ther does Twig­gy, but it came so high­ly rec­om­mend­ed and the smell was superb. Each cup is indi­vid­u­al­ly fil­tered, and there’s help-your­self bread and jam on the tables. We had a fine gos­sip. Now I’m home to make my steamed mus­sels, once John and Avery return from the skat­ing rink.

You all put your feet up and think of ways to enjoy a per­fect day. Think SMALL.

Mus­sels with White Wine and Fresh Thyme
(serves one hun­gry hus­band with a wife who does­n’t like mussels)

3 tbsps olive oil
1 lb mus­sels, cleaned
4 cloves gar­lic, chopped fine
3 shal­lots, chopped fine
1 tbsp fresh thyme (chopped with­out stems)
6 Thai fresh green pep­per­corns, chopped (from Spice Shop in Not­ting Hill)
2 cups white wine
½ cup chick­en stock
2 tbsps butter

Saute gar­lic, shal­lots, thyme and pep­per­corns in olive oil, then add white wine and stock. Bring to a boil, add mus­sels, cov­er and steam for 8 min­utes. Dis­card any that did not open, and lift good mus­sels into a large bowl with slot­ted spoon, bring wine sauce to a boil again and whisk in but­ter. Pour over mus­sels and serve with warm baguette and goats cheese.