back to Lon­don we go

Well, it hap­pened. The sum­mer end­ed! We woke up today to strong breezy winds high in the trees in the mead­ow, and lots of lit­tle heli­copters float­ing down out of the trees over the ter­race, and the begin­nings of fall foilage (as my friend Alyssa’s moth­er-in-law is wont to say) show­ing a hint of what is to come. We’ll have to find us some Eng­lish foilage. Sure­ly that’s why they call this New Eng­land, because they already had all the good stuff over there?

Jill and Joel and Jane came for one last brunch, a crowd­ed, hot affair at the Lau­rel Din­er, where it turned out I was too ner­vous to eat. Avery claimed empa­thet­ic ner­vous stom­ach, but lat­er the plate was dis­cov­ered at home upon which had reposed her two rit­u­al Sat­ur­day morn­ing dough­nuts, so we think that was the more like­ly cause of her lack of appetite. Jane was CRAZY! She has entered that half-year stage that if her cousin is any indi­ca­tion, will be the only time of her life when her par­ents are sore­ly tempt­ed to put ads in the paper indi­cat­ing her avail­abil­i­ty. But so far Jane’s crazi­ness does­n’t have the tinge of Addams Fam­i­ly that Avery’s did, as in her famous line to me, “You have NO FACE.” Jane’s wack­i­ness takes the form of end­less amounts of ener­gy and lik­ing to say things fifty times, plus devel­op­ing a strong dis­like for her car seat. Ah well, this too will pass and she’ll be doing oth­er things that dri­ve her par­ents mad, so there you go.

Yes, I’m crouch­ing here on my front porch, for no good rea­son, and fall is lit­er­al­ly in the air. Also Hur­ri­cane Ernesto.

As you can see, the hor­rid movers (actu­al­ly they were very nice) came and deliv­ered the 87 box­es of essen­tial prop­er­ty that hereto­fore had been resid­ing in Whip­pa­ny, New Jer­sey, and dumped it all in the stor­age room of our Big Barn. There­upon we went through each and every one to find my box of slides of Camille Claudel sculp­ture, and it was the only thing that did not sur­face. The only thing. But we did find miles and miles of books that Avery and I are very keen to have with us in Lon­don, and Joel has kind­ly tak­en them off to mail for us. All my Beany Mal­ones! Lots of Bet­sy-Tacys, all kinds of trea­sures. The copy of our neigh­bor Anne’s moth­er’s mem­oir, “The View From Morn­ing­side,” that I looked for for­ev­er in Lon­don among my books. Avery hun­kered right down on the filthy floor of the stor­age room and began to read, so we just stepped over and around her. Final­ly all was neat and tidy, and we went to vis­it Young Rol­lie’s baby goats! They are quite sim­ply the cutest ani­mals you’ve ever seen, and strange­ly clean. They do not, how­ev­er, come when they are called, but when they jol­ly well want to. And Judy brought by a last bas­ket of per­fect pro­duce from her farm stand: a new vari­ety of heir­loom pear (red and juicy even though not soft), an heir­loom toma­to that was a sort of pur­plish red, the first of the sea­son’s Con­necti­cut apples, impos­si­bly crunchy and flaw­less. They have been peer­less neigh­bors. To think of the farm func­tion­ing peace­ful­ly while we’re away, the farm stand pro­duce giv­ing way to pump­kins, then to Indi­an corn, then Christ­mas trees. Where will we get our tree in Lon­don? I have vivid mem­o­ries of the sad Char­lie Brown Christ­mas trees of our past hol­i­days in Lon­don; maybe they’ve got up to speed since then and there will be a decent one to grace our curv­ing gar­den win­dows in War­bur­ton Street.

And Anne across the road should be so proud of her­self: the South­bury Land Trust pur­chase of the 93 acres sur­round­ing our house has been cel­e­brat­ed with a new sign! How lucky we are to be hud­dled in the midst of unde­vel­opable land, adja­cent to the gor­geous Phillips Farm.

Well, I’m leav­ing behind beau­ti­ful­ly pruned rose bush­es, peony bush­es, the hydrangea tree and the tiger lilies that were bloom­ing so dra­mat­i­cal­ly when our car pulled up here that evening in July. There will, we hope, be renters to appre­ci­ate all the growth and blooms in June. Do you think they’ll mind the piles of books on every flat sur­face, or the rows of herbs and oils and vine­gars on the shelf above my kitchen counter? I could make every­thing only so imper­son­al. And then we’ll be back. I won­der what the autumn term at King’s Col­lege has in store for us? Com­pe­ti­tions no doubt, and per­for­mances and fairs and home­work and… a new girl! That’s right, Avery will no longer be the New Girl. Now it will be her turn to show some­one around. We’ll let you know how it all goes, and how the kit­ties take our return this evening! Have a great autumn.