a trip to Kew, and a birth­day party

irst I have to say: this is the crazy kit­ty who has been such a prob­lem to us. And yet: since we got home from the sum­mer she’s been noth­ing but a delight. Look at this seren­i­ty. Cats are a mystery.

Sat­ur­day dawned incred­i­bly fair and cool, tru­ly the per­fect weath­er in any city, any­where. Slight­ly chilly in the shade, per­fect in the sun. Blue skies and tiny white clouds. I think we brought this weath­er with us from Con­necti­cut. So we decid­ed the day could not be spent indoors, and in a rush jumped into Emmy and head­ed to Kew, to the and the Hen­ry Moore show that opened today. Why wait? We are such suck­ers for any­thing adver­tised on the sides of bus­es, I hate to say. Hen­ry Moore at Kew? Done! No research needed.

Except that we did. Need research, that is. So con­sid­er your research done, my friends: I have suf­fered for you. Not suf­fered in any sig­nif­i­cant sense, mind you, and prob­a­bly every­one knows what I’m about to tell you, but I did­n’t. Tip one: the traf­fic can turn wicked on the way to Rich­mond, and it took us near­ly an hour to get there. Tip two: the cafe is dis­gust­ing and the snack-ish shop worse, and both very expen­sive. Tip three: one could spend an entire day, even more, at the RBG and not make a dent.

So here’s what hap­pened. We had three hours to enjoy between sleep­ing late and Avery’s act­ing class, so we blithe­ly head­ed off. Got stressed, in a minor way, by the unex­pect­ed­ly inflat­ed traf­fic. Arrived starv­ing and were forced to eat repul­sive sand­wich­es and drink some­thing unfath­omable called Fen­ti­man’s Dan­de­lion and Bur­dock Some­thing or Oth­er, AWFUL. And by the time we arrived we had just an hour and a half to spend and did­n’t get to see a tenth of what we want­ed to.

But that’s the bad news. The good news is I was with the two least com­plain­ing, most agree­able peo­ple I know, and so we made the prover­bial lemons into… well, at least not Dan­de­lion Elixir. In future, I think I’d dri­ve through town and Chiswick and avoid the motor­way. As it was, we all just bit the bul­let and enjoyed the walk from the car park to the Gar­dens (hop the brick wall and you’ll find your­self on the tow lane for the riv­er, look­ing right down to the Thames and all its exot­ic water birds), then paid the sur­pris­ing­ly enor­mous fee to get in, and swal­lowed our awful lunch with good humour. Most­ly we planned on the pic­nic we would bring the next time, when we’d have all day: egg sal­ad with cress, duck pate sand­wich­es, roast chick­en, pota­to sal­ad with scal­lions and dill, straw­ber­ries and cream. It’s easy to dream. With a book each (as it was only Avery had some­thing to read, “The Princess Bride,” with which she is obsessed late­ly in an adorable way, but at least she loves to read aloud), a nice water­proof rug to lie on, and all day to spend, it would be heaven.

And plan to spend all DAY. There are near­ly 30 sculp­tures by the genius Hen­ry Moore, one of my mid-cen­tu­ry favorites, heav­i­ly influ­enced in the neg­a­tive by my old chum Rodin, scat­tered around the acres of gar­dens. We got to see almost a dozen, wan­der­ing around toward the Palm Court and tak­ing a brief trip through the marine life cen­tre, a sort of mini aquar­i­um. Lovely.

But it end­ed all too soon. We got back into town just in time to deliv­er Avery to her act­ing class, and for me to birth­day-shop for our friend Estee, cel­e­brat­ing her eighth in style in Bermond­sey. And luck­i­ly her father Vin­cent was cook­ing, in a BIG way.

Whole Gam­mon

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This, with the sim­plest of pota­to sal­ads, tiny new car­rots steamed and driz­zled with olive oil, and a green sal­ad, was the per­fect large par­ty menu. And an ENOR­MOUS choco­late cake of Vin­cen­t’s own design, stud­ded with Smarties.

And the presents! We gave her the present of the moment, in my opin­ion: sim­ple and per­fect. A pile of white t‑shirts and a set of fab­ric mark­ers. She imme­di­ate­ly had every­one sign it, as a memen­to of her birth­day par­ty, dear girl.

What great guests: Kate and Mal­colm, archi­tects extra­or­di­naire, Tara and Bri­an, hap­py for­mer own­ers of “Fresh and Wild” (I had a stir­ring dis­cus­sion with him about the sale to Whole Foods, that bas­tion of epi­cure­an con­tro­ver­sy). Bri­an is now deeply into his new con­cern, Nude skin­care, a com­plete­ly organ­ic cos­met­ics group if you can imag­ine. I can scarce­ly be both­ered to slap my face with what­ev­er’s left from my body lotion after a show­er, but fair enough, I know most women are much more care­ful of their appear­ance. Lord knows I should be. And there was our old friend Boyd. This made me very sen­ti­men­tal: Avery caught sight of Boyd and hissed under her breath, “You nev­er told me Boyd was here!” The friend­ships that were nur­tured by that trip to Moroc­co will nev­er die. And there were new friends Nick and Tony, a tremen­dous­ly con­ge­nial and hap­py group.

We all sim­ply ate and talked until we could­n’t any­more, watched the present-open­ing and Vin­cen­t’s heart­warm­ing joy in the gath­er­ing of his beloved daugh­ters, their friends, his friends. Per­fect com­pa­ny, deli­cious food, good music, a great birth­day. Thanks for invit­ing us, Estee. The next par­ty’s on us.