that’s what friends are for

For so long — real­ly since Jan­u­ary — life has been a bub­bling caul­dron of house-mov­ing con­fu­sion.  To move or not to move, what house would be best, where every­thing could go, when it would have to hap­pen, then the actu­al insan­i­ty of mak­ing it all happen.

And now… peace.

I had for­got­ten that peace­ful life meant I could sit qui­et­ly and mend a pile of bro­ken cloth­ing, make long-neglect­ed doc­tors’ and den­tists’ appoint­ments, get up to date on my pho­to albums in advance of John’s mom’s vis­it — how she loves those albums! — exper­i­ment with recipes that had looked too chal­leng­ing when all I want­ed was a roast chick­en.  I had for­got­ten that all the mun­dane, repet­i­tive chores that make up dai­ly life could be quite won­der­ful and ful­fill­ing, when they weren’t being accom­plished against the back­drop of upheaval, change and chaos.

I could reward myself for fin­ish­ing alpha­bet­iz­ing ALL the books by watch­ing every sec­ond of the Roy­al Wed­ding!  You can’t go wrong with Emma Bridge­wa­ter. We gave one of these bowls each to our moth­ers for Moth­er’s Day, just enjoy­ing the plea­sure of shop­ping and find­ing the per­fect gift.

The most heart­warm­ing devel­op­ment since tak­ing our famil­ial deep breath has been the redis­cov­ery of my friends!  They have emerged in all their glo­ry, each one of them, to do just the thing I did­n’t know I need­ed.  Sal­ly with her hand-plant­ed pot of spring flow­ers to grace my new doorstep, Dalia giv­ing me her after­noon for a spot of sushi glut­tony, con­fid­ing all our life woes and joys to each oth­er.  Lille com­ing up with an extra tick­et to “Phan­tom of the Opera” and there­by pro­vid­ing Avery with one of the great the­atre expe­ri­ences we all should have!  I’ll nev­er for­get the fun of tak­ing the late-night bus into Pic­cadil­ly to wait out­side the glit­ter­ing the­atre for Avery and her friend, lis­ten­ing to them croon­ing, “The Phaaaaaa ‑ntom of the Opera is here… inside my mind,” in the crowd­ed Tube all the way home!

And I’ve made a new friend!  There is noth­ing like a great butch­er, and in Tony Swat­land of our local vil­lage of Sheen I have found a meaty gem.

I saun­tered into his love­ly, old-fash­ioned shop devot­ed to his father’s sausage recipe, intent on procur­ing the best pork shoul­der, sausages and bacon I could, in advance of the Roy­al Wed­ding, since noth­ing says romance like pork, I always say.  And Tony helped me choose all the best morsels, point­ing to the MANY cer­tifi­cates on his walls pro­claim­ing his “Old Hen­ry’s Sausages” to be the recip­i­ents of nation­wide awards.  (I had­n’t real­ly been aware of just how many sausage com­pe­ti­tions there were, until then.)  “I’ll cut you some love­ly beef fil­lets, best in the world,” he answered my request, “how you plan­nin’ on cookin’ ’em?”  And then, face-burn­ing embar­rass­ment: John and I had no mon­ey.  And Tony takes only cash.

“Take them along with you now, and just you come back when you get a chance.  Today, tomor­row, just as you like,” he insist­ed, although I would have been per­fect­ly hap­py to leave my wares with him until I could get to the bank machine.  But no: noth­ing would do but for me to go home with my essen­tial­ly stolen goods, on the hon­or sys­tem.  What makes any­one that kind and trust­ing, in this day and age, in this enor­mous metrop­o­lis?  It felt as if every gen­er­ous impulse I had ever indulged had come back to me.  Heartwarming.

And that pork shoul­der, slow-cooked in the medi­um oven of my pre­cious Aga, and the next day pro­duc­ing the most sub­lime left­overs?  That was like mak­ing anoth­er friend, enjoy­ing that sandwich.

Oh heav­en­ly day, shred­ded rich pork, grat­ed Ched­dar, thin-sliced red onion, hot gravy, sour­dough toast… noth­ing bet­ter in the world, and in fact — shh — bet­ter than the orig­i­nal slow-roast­ed shoul­der itself.  Some­times hum­ble left­overs are bet­ter than the fan­cy sup­per dish, and if that’s not a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is.

When John went back to pay Tony it was as if we had done him an enor­mous favor.  “Just you tell your good wife that if she needs any­thing, any spe­cial out­fit [butch­er talk for spe­cial cuts, not a top and skirt], she just lets me know.”

Then there was the lux­u­ry of lunch at Son­ny’s in our new High Street, with my beau­ti­ful friend Elspeth.  Time to dis­cuss all our impor­tant busi­ness.  “First, Kris­ten, can I ask you where I might find an ice crush­er for next week’s school event?”  “But of course, I have an ice crush­er!” I delight­ed in say­ing.  Who would have thought I’d be glad one day that Avery, as a 10-year-old, had rather obscure birth­day wish­es?  From ice we moved on to gen­er­al­ly set­tling all the prob­lems of our lives, while rev­el­ling in the ridicu­lous­ly accom­plished cook­ing: fresh bal­lo­tine of sea trout, cov­ered with fresh chopped pars­ley and accom­pa­nied by a demure and decep­tive­ly per­fect beet­root and caper sal­ad.  Tiny, per­fect diced beet­root, tiny baby capers, topped with pea shoots and a light vinai­grette.  Heav­en to sit and be served with food I had not pre­pared!  And to look in a clan­des­tine fash­ion over our shoul­ders at Sara Stew­art and Alas­tair McGowan at the next table — I love celebri­ty-sight­ing!  Most of all, time to TALK, to appre­ci­ate each oth­er, to ask and get advice.  The joy of a girlfriend!

There was time to devote a morn­ing to cook­ing for the Lost Prop­er­ty lun­cheon, both lamb meat­balls and Lil­lian Hell­man chick­en, to take to my friend Sal­ly’s house because she was kind enough to host the lun­cheon dur­ing our mov­ing chaos.  It’s the per­fect par­ty dish: one part Hell­man’s may­on­naise (now you get the name!) to one part grat­ed Parme­san, mixed with lemon juice and Fox Point sea­son­ing, chick­en fil­lets rolled in this mix­ture and then in bread­crumbs, and baked at 425F/220C for half an hour. Bliss.

How peace­ful to take these offer­ings to Sal­ly’s beau­ti­ful gar­den, sit with my fel­low vol­un­teers dis­cussing our teenagers in vary­ing states of socia­bil­i­ty… And is there any­thing bet­ter than a roast­ing dish full of whole gar­lic cloves, burst­ing with olive oil and sea salt?  I think not.  As long as all your friends eat its but­tery delights, all will be well.

And then, to top off all these hap­py activ­i­ties, came “Take Your Daugh­ter To Work” Day, a clever scheme at Avery’s school whose aim was to give the girls an inspir­ing, even thrilling day at the work­place of one of their parents.

You can see where I’m going with this.

“I am real­ly NOT going to spend the day either watch­ing you cook, take pic­tures of food and write about it, or watch­ing Dad­dy work on our invest­ments.  Not that I don’t respect you both, I do.  But NO.”

What on earth were we to do?  It was but the work of a moment to air these con­cerns with my friend Fiona, who I am rapid­ly com­ing to think of as She Who Can Solve Any­thing And If She Can’t She Knows Some­one Who Can.

“I have a friend,” said Fiona as we packed up all Avery’s Amer­i­can Girl dolls to give to Fion­a’s girls, “who has a friend whose part­ner is a fash­ion design­er.  Per­haps Avery could go along to his stu­dio, see what he does all day?”

And thus was sprout­ed the project that — after many emails to and from dar­ling Fiona, her friend, HER friend, and his part­ner and me — put Avery and me on a crowd­ed, stinky ear­ly-sum­mer com­muter Tube from our neigh­bor­hood of South­west Lon­don to her des­ti­na­tion… North­east Lon­don.  A true odyssey, end­ing in my hand­ing Avery over to Stephane St Jaymes of Lon­don Fash­ion Week cat­walk fame, for the day of her life.

I looked once or twice or a hun­dred times at my watch that day, won­der­ing what they were talk­ing about, how she was get­ting on, thank­ing Fiona a thou­sand times in my mind… and then off again to pick her up, mak­ing our way by car this time across the riv­er, across town, down a roman­tic brick alley­way, real­ly, through a sug­ges­tive and excit­ing series of door­ways, to find Avery with Stephane and his two assis­tants, talk­ing nine­teen to the dozen about “mood boards” and the new Col­lec­tion, the fun they’d had work­ing togeth­er all day.

“I real­ly want her to come and intern with me,” Stephane said in his ele­gant yet friend­ly way, “She knows so much about com­put­ers, blogs and Face­book and Twit­ter… and she’s so New York.”

How gen­er­ous is that?  For that mat­ter how gen­er­ous was Fiona to go to such lengths for Avery, to give her an excit­ing one-of-a-kind day, and a new ambi­tion… “For­get every­thing I’ve ever said I want­ed to do: THAT is what I want to do!”  And real­ly, isn’t that what being 14 should be about: wak­ing up to a new day, meet­ing new peo­ple, giv­ing it your all and then com­ing away feel­ing that anoth­er door has been opened to you?

I have my ener­gy back now, after a week sur­round­ed by the pals I love who — each in her own spe­cial way — has gone the extra mile to make life worth liv­ing.  It’s nev­er easy to know how to give all that back, but I am ready to begin trying.