I’m off

Well, it’s come. Depar­ture tomor­row. Unless some­thing is dif­fer­ent to what I expect, I won’t be blog­ging for at least a week, so enjoy a qui­et week with no updates from me. Fin­gers crossed that 1) all goes well at home while I’m away, 2) my fel­low scrib­blers are con­ge­nial, 3) the weath­er coop­er­ates so I can escape on a long walk if my fel­low scrib­blers are not con­ge­nial, and 4) no cat in my house­hold decides to express his or her lone­li­ness for me in any fur­ni­ture-relat­ed escapades…

We awoke this morn­ing to pour­ing rain and a dis­tinct lack of enthu­si­asm on Avery’s part for the day at the sta­ble that beck­oned. Could­n’t blame her. “How about if I just sit here, wear­ing my hel­met on this chair, and you light the fire and I can read all day?” I felt quite empa­thet­ic! I should say “sym­pa­thet­ic” because noth­ing could induce me to spend a rainy Octo­ber Sun­day scoop­ing poo from the mews on the way to the park. But that is just what she did. I went back home and spent the day cook­ing: the bre­sao­la-moz­zarel­la-stuffed chick­en I told you about, and scal­loped pota­toes, and lots of veg: sauteed hari­cots verts, aspara­gus, sug­ar snap peas and broc­col­i­ni. Plus toma­to-moz­zarel­la sal­ad, prob­a­bly the last of the sea­son. I looked up at one point and poor Hermione sat out­side the gar­den win­dow cry­ing inaudi­bly, her mouth open­ing and clos­ing most pitiably, so I let her in, soaked to the skin and inex­plic­a­bly miss­ing her col­lar. Oh dear. Now the crazy feline can­not go out until I get her a new col­lar and tag…

Final­ly back out to get Avery, feel­ing that I spent most of my life on both direc­tions of the 94 bus… but I could­n’t com­plain when I saw her. Freez­ing cold, so filthy dirty and stinky that I felt quite guilty putting her in a cab, but bet­ter than a bus­ful of suf­fer­ers. “Ugh, I wish the traf­fic on the way had been five min­utes more stuffed up, because I was JUST in time to ‘do the Square,’ ” which is short­hand for scoop­ing the poo, and in the rain to boot, which is real­ly scrap­ing the bot­tom of tasks. I put her prompt­ly into a bub­bly bath and did a few last minute cook­ing jobs, and then thought I’d get my suit­case out to pack this evening. I felt strong­ly and yet almost uncon­scious­ly, as I opened the base­ment door, that I should not be able to see my reflec­tion in the floor. And why would­n’t the lights turn on? Yes, a mas­sive flood in the room con­tain­ing all our lug­gage (and for some bizarre rea­son an out­grown pair of halfchaps and a pile of chipped flowerpots)…

Just then the door­bell rang and there were our din­ner guests: Avery’s new friend Bet­sy and her impec­ca­bly turned-out moth­er… and the hall light would not turn on. Hmm, a pen­ny dropped. Con­nect­ed to the water? “I have to tell you some­thing very unto­ward is going on,” I said to our guests, “and thank you for com­ing! But I think I have to solve this prob­lem, before I can relax… let me pour you a glass of wine,” but the moth­er was hav­ing none of it, and sim­ply descend­ed to the base­ment with me and game­ly held the torch while I inves­ti­gat­ed. Sim­ply flood­ed, don’t know why. But after an adven­ture with fus­es and switch­es, we man­aged to get the lights back on, and sev­er­al use­ful suit­cas­es hung by their straps from the dubi­ous rafters, and an emer­gency email sent to the land­la­dy. THEN she accept­ed a glass of wine. The British com­mit­ment to an emergency!

They had brought a huge­ly extrav­a­gant box of all Bet­sy’s favorite pas­tries from Paul, so after din­ner the girls tucked in. A love­ly new friend… and a moth­er who braves a wet basement!

So it’s to sleep for me, up to get Avery off to school with, one hopes, as lit­tle dra­ma from me as pos­si­ble about our sep­a­ra­tion. Then onto Padding­ton and my adventure.

back soon!