bright­en­ing up Lon­don winter

Every year, I for­get quite how drab and grey the months of Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary are!  Of course this peri­od begins with jet­lag, always so bor­ing and per­sis­tent com­ing East.  Even once one gets over that, when one does­n’t see a patch of blue sky or a snip­pet of sun for days, even weeks on end, it can make one won­der why one lives in this depress­ing climate.

But it’s LON­DON!  There is so much to see and do, dis­cov­er­ies to make and deli­cious adven­tures to be had, that you just have to get up off the sofa and get out there.

Jan­u­ary 20 was no one’s favorite day, as far as I know.  The events car­ried with them a sur­re­al dis­be­liev­ing qual­i­ty, and it was just as well that we woke up the fol­low­ing day with sun­shine and a Wom­en’s March to go to!  It was an atmos­phere com­posed of equal parts resis­tance, deter­mi­na­tion, and sheer fun and togeth­er­ness.  JoAnn came down from Oxford for the event, and of course being with her always improves any­thing.  She took great joy in her sil­ly hat and every­one else’s!

John just hap­pened to run into our dar­ling, brave May­or of Lon­don, Sadiq Khan, join­ing the March with­out any fan­fare what­so­ev­er (or secu­ri­ty).  He was hap­py to shake hands!

I ran into one of my favorite actress­es, Liz Carr.  So gracious!

The signs alone would have made it worth the effort to go.  How are some peo­ple so clever?

Per­haps the most touch­ing thing was see­ing so many chil­dren — boys as well as girls — express­ing their wish to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as humans.

The lit­tle boys were so darling.

It was a very inspir­ing day.  I know it is going to take all our patience, atten­tion and hard work to make the next few years palat­able or even sur­viv­able, but for that one day, it was clear that good out­weighs bad, and intel­li­gence and good humor out­weighs buffoonery.

Avery was able to com­bine going to the March with get­ting her lat­est Sas­soon “do”.  We can’t wait for the offi­cial pho­tographs to come out.

Have I men­tioned our new obses­sion?  We call it “get­ting our steps,” and it involves a ded­i­ca­tion to walk­ing absolute­ly every­where and even invent­ing places to go, so as to walk as many steps as pos­si­ble every sin­gle day.  10,000 is the dai­ly goal, and some­times we get a bit few­er and some­times a lot more.  There is so much to see, out and about.

Sun­set on the riv­er is some­times very beau­ti­ful, if we can escape the grey skies.

As a result of all this exer­cise, I was star pupil at my annu­al health check — with­out even hav­ing to make an effort, or even think about it, my blood pres­sure had dropped impres­sive­ly, as had my cho­les­terol!  The doc­tor was prop­er­ly aston­ished, but when I told her about our “steps” she was under­stand­ing.  “It’s the sin­gle cheap­est, sim­plest way for absolute­ly any­one to improve over­all health.”  Yay!  Bring on the cheese.

Spicy Cau­li­flower Cheese

(serves 4–6)

1 large head cauliflower

3 tbsps butter

1 tbsp cornstarch/cornflour

2 cups/470 ml milk

1 cup/100g shred­ded sharp Cheddar

cayenne pep­per to taste (at least two pinches)

fresh grat­ed nut­meg to taste (again, two pinch­es at least)

dry mus­tard to taste (same), or 1 tbsp whole­grain mustard

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

hand­ful panko (option­al)

chives, chopped very fine

Sep­a­rate the cau­li­flower into large flo­rets and plunge in boil­ing water till ten­der, about 6–8 min­utes.  When you can  pierce them with a sharp knife, they are ready.

But­ter a casse­role dish large enough to fit all the cau­li­flower in a sin­gle lay­er and place the flo­rets in it.

Melt the but­ter and whisk the corn­flour into it to make a paste.  Bring the milk near­ly to a boil and whisk in the corn­flour mix­ture.  Stir until thick­ened, and if you’d like it even thick­er, make anoth­er paste and add it.  Of course, add even more milk if you like lots of sauce!

Then add the cheese and sea­son­ings and stir often till cheese is melt­ed.  Pour it over the cau­li­flower, sprin­kle with panko (if a crunchy top is liked) and bake at 350F/180C till bub­bly and browned, about 30 min­utes.  Top with a sprin­kle of chives.

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This dish is intense­ly com­fort­ing and at the same time chal­leng­ing — the com­bi­na­tion of creamy, cheesy sauce and the mix­ture of spicy notes is just divine.  Per­fect with roast­ed chicken.

To work this off, in addi­tion to walk­ing mad­ly, I’ve been ring­ing, of course.  How beau­ti­ful the church is on a Sun­day morning.

But it’s equal­ly stun­ning at night, before Mon­day practice.

And then we had a bevy of vis­i­tors from Kent, Con­necti­cut, where I used to ring in the sum­mer times.  Do you remem­ber Tom, my crush — such a won­der­ful teacher, with a dou­ble PhD in musi­col­o­gy and com­par­a­tive reli­gion, I think.  A heav­en­ly man.

The com­bi­na­tion of my two Toms was almost more than I could bear.  It was a chance in a life­time to have them togeth­er in the tow­er at St Giles in the Fields.

It is always such a joy to cross the Mil­len­ni­um Bridge late at night when all the hordes of tourists have final­ly gone to their blame­less hotel beds and I have the whole length to myself.

Once across, one must peep in the win­dows of the Tate Mod­ern cafe, and if one is lucky, see Tate Mouse.

Speak­ing of the Tate, one evening last week brought my friend Eliz­a­beth out into the blus­tery wind to pop into the muse­um for this gem!

Does life get any more sophis­ti­cat­ed than being read to by SIMON CAL­LOW, play­ing all the parts in “Infer­no”?  Francesca tells us:

“Love, that so soon takes hold in the gen­tle breast,
Took this lad with the love­ly body they tore
From me; the way of it leaves me still distrest.

Love, that to no loved heart remits love’s score,
Took me with such great joy of him, that see!
It holds me yet and nev­er shall leave me more.

Love to a sin­gle death brought him and me.”

Until that evening, all I knew about the “Infer­no” was bound up in art his­to­ry: that it forms the sub­ject mat­ter for Rod­in’s “The Gates of Hell,” and that Dante, in the form of “The Thinker,” pre­sides over the Gates.  I had for­got­ten that “The Kiss” depicts Pao­lo and Francesca in their ill-fat­ed passion.

What a superb, “divine” evening.  He read for 90 min­utes, but we could have stayed five times that long, hap­pi­ly.  At the close of the per­for­mance he pulled off his glass­es, shut the book, looked at all of us grave­ly, bowed slight­ly, and walked slow­ly off­stage.  We were spellbound!

Of course Feb­ru­ary brings with it our two birth­days.  My “Book Club” (most­ly we gos­sip, such won­der­ful women) met the day before and I came home with flow­ers and beau­ti­ful­ly wrapped parcels.  Of course to Tacy and Hermione, the wrap­pings ARE the presents.

On my real birth­day, John and I went for an extrav­a­gant and rather over­whelm­ing lunch at the “new-style” sushi restau­rant in Maryle­bone, Din­ings, where we ‘d eat­en exact­ly a year ago and nev­er for­got­ten it.  Yel­low­tail and wasabi mayo in tiny home­made Pringles!  Sea bass sashi­mi with truf­fles and ponzu!  Smoked eel with foie gras and buck­wheat!  Deep-fried sesame aubergine!  We rolled our­selves home.  And then I got my presents, among them a hot water bot­tle cov­ered in orange cash­mere, and then this beau­ty.  My first toast rack!

Isn’t it cute?  With this we had my crab and goat cheese tart, quite sim­ply the best food in the world.  Make it, do!

I bought myself a birth­day coat!  No, your eyes aren’t fool­ing you — it tru­ly isn’t black!  And would you believe the mak­er named it the “Camille Claudel coat, inspired by the 19th cen­tu­ry French sculp­tor”!  Only the sub­ject of my dis­ser­ta­tion, can you imag­ine it?

Of course, to make life a bit sweet­er (but also to share the max­i­mum num­ber of child-borne germs) there is Fri­day play­group.  How I wish I could show you the chil­dren them­selves, but you get a sense of the joy­ous atmos­phere here, rather like the start of a For­mu­la 1 race!

Things are heat­ing up too at my Thurs­day after-school club, where last week dear Char­lie was open-mouthed with aston­ish­ment that I have turned 52.  “You don’t look any old­er than my mum and she’s 29!”  I love you, Char­lie.  And who can resist lit­tle four-year-old Daisy, who comes up to tap me on the arm.  “Watch how I can hop, Kris­ten!  It is so dif­fer­ent to jump­ing, it’s just one foot at a time!”  And then I spent some fruit­less min­utes try­ing to con­vince 8‑year-old Hen­ry that teach­ing his friends his strate­gies at “Noughts and Cross­es” (Tick-tack-toe to my Amer­i­can friends) would be even more fun than his win­ning, every sin­gle time.  He was dubi­ous, but will­ing to try.

Sat­ur­day of this week­end brought almost too much joy.  Every once in awhile I hear the siren song of my orig­i­nal bell­ring­ing tow­er at St Mary’s, Barnes.  The temp­ta­tion to join my old friends, those who taught me at the very begin­ning, and to share in the spe­cial joy of a ground-floor ring­ing cham­ber, is just too much.  Sat­ur­day found me there, such a beloved place.

My dear friends Claire and her boys Fred­die and Angus popped along to catch the end of the ring­ing and to share a birth­day lunch with me!  The sound of Fred­die singing is real­ly too much.  Between bites of sausage rolls and lemon cake, we man­aged to catch up with most of our news, and to agree that a vis­it to us at Bank­side was def­i­nite­ly in order.  I hat­ed to say goodbye!

It was a rush to get home in time to receive an old, old friend — well, a very young, young friend but one we’ve known since she was tiny — Avery child­hood best friend Anna, come down from Oxford with her friend Megan!

What mature, gra­cious, friend­ly, love­ly young women they are — intent on train­ing to be ele­men­tary school teach­ers.  Can you imag­ine a child’s luck at get­ting such young, beau­ti­ful women to start them on the path of education!

Over cups of cof­fee and bowls of Anna’s moth­er’s spe­cial “Beck­y’s Cheesy Pota­toes,” we caught up on each oth­er’s lives since we were last togeth­er, which we thought might be four or five years.  Too long!  How I wished Becky, my part­ner in crime in so many Lon­don adven­tures, could have been there with us.

As they dashed away to make a the­atre date, John and I wan­dered through misty sun­set Lon­don, mar­vel­ling at the pas­sage of time, and how won­der­ful it is when your chil­dren’s friends like you for your­self, not just as a moth­er or father.

That evening, lying peace­ful­ly in bed, I reflect­ed that while there aren’t a lot of won­der­ful things about get­ting old­er, one of them is watch­ing the next gen­er­a­tion come along, bet­ter than their pre­de­ces­sors — wis­er, kinder, more thought­ful — and feel grate­ful at hav­ing had a small hand at bring­ing them up.  Gaz­ing at my can­dlelit bed­room book­shelf, the past and the present merged, and I was happy.