are you sit­ting down? it hap­pened AGAIN

Can I just say? I of course must leave the Maryle­bone High Street now and then, I sup­pose: to eat, sleep, see my fam­i­ly, such­like. But may I remind you all that it was a mere few months ago that, while on an inno­cent kitchen-sup­ply shop­ping trip there, I saw… Matthew? And today… fate smiled on me once again. Let me explain.

In the third week of Decem­ber a moth­er’s thoughts turn nat­u­ral­ly to Christ­mas shop­ping. And, as well, to rehearsals for the Form Six Mums’ per­for­mance of “The Sus­sex Car­ol” at tomor­row’s school Christ­mas con­cert. We moth­ers turned up at school for what I can tell you was a tear-pro­duc­ing, at least for me, event. To enter the gor­geous Geor­gian pro­por­tions and carved plas­ter that make up the music room, to hear the pip­ing voic­es of so many gulls raised in song… I almost just sat down and cried. Their lit­tle hands tug­ging at my legs as I walked by, “Mrs Cur­ran, I read with you!” from gulls who would rather die, nor­mal­ly, than acknowl­edge they’ve ever seen me before. Miss Potts clapped for atten­tion and said stern­ly, “Now, gulls, I know this is very excit­ing to have your mums here, but may I ask you PLEASE not to turn around and gaze at them?”

So we sang. I recov­ered my wits. Mrs D appeared and we were all silenced. Shan­non next to me said, “We have an AUDI­ENCE.” We were pre­pared. It should all sound divine tomor­row. If I can stop weep­ing. I was able to pat Avery’s head as I walked by. Then it was onto… shopping.

Becky and I braved the wind and entered a shop that shall remain name­less for Christ­mas sur­prise pur­pos­es, when I looked up from a rack of adorable girls’ skirts and sweaters and I had to grab her arm. “It’s Matthew! It’s Matthew!” I shrieked in an under­tone, and she looked up. “Oh, my gosh, Kris­ten,” she was kind enough to say in com­mis­er­a­tion, since I can­not in all sin­cer­i­ty say that she would care, but for being with me. And, dear read­ers, let me describe his appear­ance, just so we can all pic­ture him.

VERY tall and very slen­der, with that Tom Quinn jaw we all know and love. Could his hair have been high­light­ed? Spikey and short on top, but longer in back. Glass­es, yes. Jeans, a jack­et, not a coat although it was frigid out, and a new-look­ing pair of those Tom Quinn wingtip leather lace­ups we’re so famil­iar with. He gazed around, met my eye (again!) and still, I did noth­ing. Root­ed to the spot! Although I had the sense to con­tin­ue to hold the hang­er in my hand, and not sim­ply drop to the floor. The shop was­n’t crowd­ed and every­thing was so charm­ing that I can­not imag­ine why he did­n’t stay to shop (what with a lit­tle girl of his own! but to each his own), and I swear I did noth­ing embar­rass­ing to dri­ve him away. Still, it made me won­der great­ly what it is that dri­ves him to shop in MY high street! Too, too thrilling.

Well, I have a sim­ply divine recipe for meat­balls stroganoff to tell you about, but that will have to wait until tomor­row. Yes, my dears, I did take time off from con­tem­plat­ing my amaz­ing luck to cook and eat and clear up after din­ner. Such things wait for no… Matthew. But it was LOVE­LY. Hap­py Holidays!