the­atre of the absurd

I am con­cen­trat­ing on this love­ly pho­to­graph as proof that by the din­ner hour, my house­hold is always quite peace­ful. I need this reas­sur­ance today because, frankly, things are quite mad here. I will try to describe.

As many of you know, to my intense cha­grin and seri­ous incon­ve­nience, I am aller­gic to hors­es. This would not be a prob­lem ordi­nar­i­ly since I can take hors­es or leave them, but as you also know, my child is quite addict­ed to the crea­tures and as a result, a fair amount of my time is spent get­ting her to the sta­ble and get­ting her back, not to men­tion watch­ing a les­son if it’s in the ring and not sim­ply wan­der­ing around Hyde Park. The hours, the hours I have spent watch­ing a lit­tle girl go around and around a ring, whether in the Bronx in the old days, the Cotswolds or Scot­land on hol­i­day, and then of course here in the park. Bore­dom vies with sneez­ing on these excursions.

Last night I went to col­lect her at the sta­ble and we took the rare lux­u­ry of a cab home, because pub­lic trans­port was severe­ly messed up. It was the first mis­take: she was far too cold and wet for me to have the win­dow open, so we spent the half hour jour­ney com­plete­ly cooped up and with the dread­ful smell of barn suf­fo­cat­ing me. Home to throw her in a bath­tub and make my bolog­nese. I decid­ed to ignore my sneez­ing because I can­not bear the super-intense thirst that comes with tak­ing an anti­his­t­a­mine: like hav­ing a mouth full of paper tow­els. Not nice.

How­ev­er, when at 11 o’clock or so I saw her filthy half-chaps and boots under my desk, I picked them up, dumped them in her ruck­sack and… rubbed my eyes. With horsey fin­gers. Instant mis­ery. I could not see, strug­gled to breathe. I could feel my chest clos­ing up and that is always scary. Rush to the cup­board, take TWO Benadryl, and… I func­tioned for awhile, and then it was like being hit by a truck. Sim­ply dead to the world. When at 8 a.m. I awoke to the DOOR­BELL, I could see that I had slept with­out mov­ing for the entire night: every pil­low per­fect­ly in place, as if I had been a medieval corpse with my hands fold­ed over my chest. Who on earth could be ring­ing my door­bell at 8 a.m.?

“It’s Faux Frost, Mum­my!” Avery was bounc­ing around look­ing sick­en­ing­ly ener­getic, to a per­son with a Benadryl hang­over. What an igno­min­ious hang­over that is, to be sure. No carous­ing, no hang­ing around a bar flirt­ing with some invest­ment banker over an Abso­lut Cit­ron… no, I have to get MY hang­overs from aller­gy med­ica­tion. So not cool.

I stag­gered up. You may recall the tra­gi-com­ic episode from last sum­mer, where our sofa and bench were held hostage for months by Mr Frost, at first mere­ly a does­n’t-answer-his-phone uphol­ster­er who became, in due time, a com­plete­ly dead uphol­ster­er who went to his reward with­out, appar­ent­ly, telling any­one where our belong­ings were. Well, over the course of the sum­mer the objects were locat­ed, ALLEGED­LY, although the fab­ric to do them up had dis­ap­peared (a wind­ing sheet, per­haps?). Mr Frost’s suc­ces­sor, Faux Frost, assured us that all would be well… we chose fab­ric again, he came for a con­sul­ta­tion, and when he left we held hands like chil­dren in a for­est, think­ing the sto­ry might have a hap­py end­ing after all.

Months passed, AGAIN. I became quite fond of the emp­ty spots in our house where there should be places to sit… it was min­i­mal, and sort of elegant.

Then last week Faux Frost turned up out of the blue and said he would be around on Mon­day (oh dear, today) with our stuff. “What per­cent­age do you give that?” I asked my long-suf­fer­ing hus­band, who said he thought about 20.

But here they were, first thing in the morn­ing, dis­gust­ing­ly cheer­ful and chat­ty. And we have our fur­ni­ture back. The sofa cush­ion is very, very odd, sort of envelop­ing the unwary sit­ting per­son in a crunchy and yet also feath­ery embrace. John will HATE it. Of this I am cer­tain. But I did­n’t have the heart to send it away. Maybe it will grow on us. I’m just afraid that the day will come when we can’t find one of the cats and it will be fold­ed into the cush­ion, trapped and hun­gry. Or even Avery. She’s not that big.

For heav­en’s sake. As the Faux Frost Helpers were car­ry­ing the sofa upstairs, Avery and I looked out the open front door to see a tiny lit­tle lady face­down on the pave­ment just out­side our gate. Hmm. We decid­ed to inves­ti­gate. As we approached, ask­ing, “Are you all right?” she slow­ly pulled her­self to a sit­ting posi­tion and said, “I’ve bro­ken off my toof.” And sure enough, six inch­es or so away from where she had been lying was a lit­tle white thing. How awful. She stood up and was not any taller than Avery, but clutch­ing in her hand an even small­er scoot­er. “I nicked my son’s scoot­er to run an errand or two, and now… this. Does it look awful?” She gri­maced at us, and then said dis­con­so­late­ly, “I can see from the look on your faces that I’m in a real pick­le now.” She said she’d bet­ter go home and call the den­tist, where­upon Avery vol­un­teered, “I have to go to the den­tist today too… just a check­up, though, sor­ry.” Apol­o­gis­ing for not hav­ing bro­ken her own tooth off. For heav­en’s sake.

Mad­ness.

The Frosts have retreat­ed, the cats are fas­ci­nat­ing by the reap­pear­ance in their lives of a well-remem­bered nap­ping spot, and I’m drink­ing every­thing in sight try­ing des­per­ate­ly to dis­pel this lame, tame, unin­ter­est­ing hang­over. The only thing cheer­ing me up is lunch. You could even eat it with­out a toof, I think.

Mixed Bean Salad
(serves lots, and improves with time)

1 soup-size can each: bor­lot­ti, can­nelli­ni, black beans
1 cup edamame, steamed and podded
1 red bell pep­per, thin­ly sliced
2 ears sweet­corn, cut off the cob
1 bunch scal­lions, sliced on the bias includ­ing green parts
1 red onion, diced
hand­ful sug­ar snap peas, sliced as you like
2 cloves gar­lic, very fine­ly minced

dress­ing:
juice of 2 lemons
good slug chilli-infused olive oil (I am loy­al to Apu­lia)
sea salt to taste (it can take a lot, I find, with the mild­ness of the beans)
fresh black pep­per to taste

Shake the dress­ing vig­or­ous­ly in a jar till thor­ough­ly blend­ed. Rinse beans well in a colan­der and then mix every­thing in a large bowl. Per­fect with a cou­ple of baguette bites and a fil­let of smoked mack­er­el on the side.