autum­nal-ish developments

I sim­ply can­not believe it’s been only a week since we got home. I must just be slow-wit­ted or some­thing, but it takes me a good­ish while (more than a week, appar­ent­ly) to incor­po­rate that we don’t get to see Jill, Joel and Jane any­more (sob), we don’t have dai­ly vis­its from Farmer Rol­lie keep­ing us informed on the price of fer­til­iz­er, I can’t call my moth­er with­out check­ing my watch, and there is nev­er enough ice.

On the oth­er hand, it feels more lucky than pos­si­ble to be back at the steps of King’s Col­lege at pick­up time, lis­ten­ing to the sten­to­ri­an and author­i­ta­tive (but strange­ly dul­cet) tones of the head­mistress say­ing, “How good to see you, Mrs Cur­ran,” turn­ing on the tele­vi­sion and see­ing not mind-numb­ing “Wheel of For­tune” (Avery’s absolute sum­mer favorite), but on the BBC pre­sent­ing “How We Built Britain,” a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme that would turn any Amer­i­can who does­n’t appre­ci­ate the British spir­it into an absolute Anglophile. In fact, John says seri­ous­ly that if I get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to leave him for David, he will under­stand, and in fact he would leave ME for David if the chance arose. He’s just that charis­mat­ic. I love men of that age who charm depart­ment store clerks and chim­ney sweeps. Of course if you can’t play the British DVD, then buy the book. I love it.

Then, too, to help heal the wounds of leav­ing Con­necti­cut, there is always… a vis­it to my British doc­tor’s office. Just a check­up for Avery (bloom­ing, per­fect in every way, knock wood), but well worth it to read the notices in the wait­ing room (fur­nished with sag­ging leather sofas, lay­er upon lay­er of thread­bare Ori­en­tal rugs and fes­tooned with plas­ter ros­es in the ceil­ing, love­ly), and to peruse the cov­ers of the many issues of “Coun­try Life” mag­a­zine on the table. Let’s see: “Please refrain from use of mobile phones whilst in the wait­ing room,” and “Please do not change babies’ nap­kins in the wait­ing room.” How civilised. And the mag­a­zines: “All Hail the West­ie,” “How Wordsworth Lived At Home,” and my per­son­al favourite, “Gun­dogs: Why I Would Nev­er Shoot With­out One.” Indeed. And the doc­tor her­self, so calm and patient. And admir­ing, so I love her. “I do so admire the way Amer­i­can chil­dren are able to speak right up to an adult, look her in the eye, actu­al­ly hold a con­ver­sa­tion,” she said, which sur­prised me because in my expe­ri­ence of Eng­lish chil­dren that’s just the sort of thing you get. I hope her com­ment was­n’t a sort of veiled, “Amer­i­can chil­dren are very for­ward.” Ah well, inter­pret it as a com­pli­ment until proved oth­er­wise, I always say. When she asked if I thought Avery was tall for her age, I said, “I think she’s about aver­age,” to which the doc­tor snort­ed, “I should say NOT! Aver­age, no!”

And Lon­don brings the sight of a pair of Chelsea Pen­sion­ers, slow­ly cross­ing the grass in Hyde Park, in their long scar­let coats, one with a walk­ing stick and the oth­er with his arm through his com­pan­ion’s. You don’t get that in Con­necti­cut. Nor a long newsy chat with Becky nor taxi dri­vers who say, “Thank you, my love, run along with the kid­dies now.”

Any­way, I find it hard to rec­on­cile the two worlds, and sup­pose we’re stuck with a life in which, as Avery says when she’s feel­ing melan­choly, “There is always some­thing to miss.” But that’s a very glass half-full atti­tude, instead of being glad to have both. It’s made me think of a new title for my cook­book (ha! if I ever write it): “At Home on Both Sides of the Pond.” What do you think? I need a semi-colon and a sec­ond half, obvi­ous­ly, but I think I like it.

We’re think­ing too about the death of Pavarot­ti this week. How’s this for a mem­o­ry: in the sum­mer of 1992, when we were liv­ing in Moscow (I was between my doc­tor­al exams and my first teach­ing job, and John was doing all sorts of secret things), the Fourth of July came and guess what we did? We sat in Red Square, by spe­cial invi­ta­tion, and lis­tened to… the Three Tenors. Seri­ous­ly! 1992 was a very, very weird year in Moscow, obvi­ous­ly. But it was SUB­LIME. I will nev­er for­get look­ing up over the stage and watch­ing the lights play on the Krem­lin and the Cathe­dral. What a time.

Well, I must fly. I am sor­ry to post with no recipe! But hon­est­ly, I had a bit of a yawn-mak­ing din­ner last night that I intend­ed to blog about, but it was­n’t inter­est­ing enough to tell you about. Except to say that scal­lops with Chi­nese five-spice and sauteed red chilis and scal­lions is… a bore. I hope to redeem myself this week! My great wish is to learn to pro­duce fried soft-shell crabs in the man­ner of the Man­darin Kitchen, but guess what? They’re not indige­nous to the UK, and so Fish­Works don’t sell them, and Sel­f­ridges Food Hall did­n’t have any good rea­son why they don’t sell them. I’ve just ordered some from Thai­land, if you can imag­ine, so wish me luck.