is it get­ting better?

I’m sure Avery could teach me how to say that in Latin.  We spent all Thurs­day after­noon and evening going through her Latin text­books and teach­ing each oth­er how to say things like “noli tan­gere, Rufe!”  Which will come in handy if you have a friend called Rufus that you want not to touch any­thing.  She is remark­ably good at it.  And pul­chri­tu­da, too.

In any case, we con­tin­ue to wade through piles of horse show rib­bons, linen nap­kins, kit­ty pris­ons whose screws won’t come apart for flat stor­age but bear adorable labels like “I’m Hermione, a dark small tab­by.  My final des­ti­na­tion is Lon­don Heathrow, please take care of me!”  I suc­cumbed yes­ter­day and took a long nap and when I woke up John had com­plete­ly set­tled the kitchen which is a huge help.  I had hereto­fore been pro­duc­ing roast chick­en, spinach and red pep­per pas­ta, roast joints (why is it called a joint?  as far as I can tell it’s not an elbow or a knee, it’s just an ordi­nary roast beef, must find out), and count­less break­fasts of fried bacon and eggs com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by enor­mous piles of din­ner plates, use­less kitchen appli­ances and many, many mis­matched cof­fee cups.  Now all is pris­tine, except for the floor which is cov­ered by box­es of stuff to give to char­i­ty.  And tragedy has struck in Crush Land: my dar­ling porter Bob has been kicked upstairs to Senior Build­ing Man­ag­er and his replace­ment Iain, while love­ly and help­ful, is not crush mate­r­i­al.  So apply­ing to him for help in the rub­bish line is not going to have any heart-stop­ping impli­ca­tions.  Oh well.

Let’s see, Fri­day Avery and I had an after-school snack at the love­ly Patis­serie Valerie in the Maryle­bone High Street, only she had a gor­geous slice of choco­late sponge cake and I had a hor­ror called “Chick Pea and Pota­to Soup,” whose name alone should have warned me that it would be real­ly odd, and it was.  I could­n’t take the whole thing, but any­way I was dis­tract­ed by Avery’s tale of their school excur­sion to the Uni­corn The­atre for a pre­sen­ta­tion of “Tom’s Mid­night Gar­den,” tak­en from the Philip­pa Pearce book which I had giv­en her but she had­n’t read, and we agreed on the fail­ing we both have of lit­er­al­ly judg­ing a book by its cov­er, or at least its blurbs, which were unim­pres­sive.  But the play was mag­nif­i­cent and we are both hop­ing to go back togeth­er.  Then we end­ed up in the Daunt Book­shop up the road from the cafe, and if you ever get to Lon­don you MUST make a jour­ney to this book­shop.  So exten­sive, so quixot­ic in its choic­es, and the staff are orig­i­nal book­worms with moth­e­at­en jumpers (sweaters to you Yanks), iron­ic eye­brow motions and help­ful com­ments.  I want­ed all Jamie Oliv­er’s cook­books, but set­tled on ask­ing for them for my birth­day.  I did peruse a cook­ery book all about fab­u­lous food stores around the world, which was very enjoy­able.  There was one cov­ered that is in Glouces­ter­shire near the famed Nation­al Trust House called Chastle­ton, that John and I stum­bled on, derelict, 15 years ago, and then saw being slow­ly done up dur­ing our trip here when Avery was two, and is now fin­ished.  The food store, and farm asso­ci­at­ed with it, are called Dayles­ford; the Cur­rans and we shopped there by hap­pen­stance over spring break and I have nev­er spent so much mon­ey on food in my life.  Rather, I have nev­er asked John’s dad to spend so much mon­ey on food in his life, since I lost the usu­al bat­tle for the bill.  Organ­ic every­thing, in a fab­u­lous archi­tec­tur­al set­ting and much top­i­ary in the gardens.

Yes­ter­day we went skat­ing at the rink behind Som­er­set House, home of many hap­py mem­o­ries for me at the Cour­tauld Insti­tute Gal­leries in my art his­to­ri­an days.  The rink is sim­ply lux­u­ri­ous, but I thought it would have been even nicer at night, because it’s both lit and heat­ed by enor­mous burn­ing torch­es that in the dark must be tru­ly gor­geous.  But we had fun.  Then a far too long walk, start­ing out hap­pi­ly in Trafal­gar Square like com­pleat tourists, with Avery climb­ing on the lions, but degen­er­at­ing into a point­less walk to Con­ran’s for fur­ni­ture, noth­ing in stock, and spi­ral­ing fur­ther down­ward to Peter Lewis in Sloane Square, also point­less, noth­ing in stock.  In total annoy­ance we got a taxi home, none the wis­er than a bet­ter pair of gog­gles for Avery’s swim class.  Hence my des­per­ate nap.

So this week will be more search­ing for con­tain­ers for all our stuff, and peo­ple to come take the oth­er stuff we can’t live with.  Tonight will be fet­tucine with aspara­gus and gam­mon steak (ham to you at home), in a lemon cream sauce.  For com­fort.  Oh, and we’ve been watch­ing the hilar­i­ous com­pe­ti­tion pro­gramme on tele­vi­sion, “Danc­ing on Ice,” where they pair a real live skater with a semi-celebri­ty who has a month to learn how to skate for a com­pe­ti­tion.  Very sooth­ing.  Every­one is always “com­plete­ly gob­s­macked” at win­ning, and “chuffed to bits” at pro­ceed­ing to the next lev­el.  Then they’re “gut­ted” when they’re elim­i­nat­ed.  And they say we speak the same language!