feline anx­i­ety again

Yes, Lord Peter Wim­sey has slipped into recidi­vism over the week­end and is show­ing signs of a decline into ner­vous agi­ta­tion once more. He has anger issues with his sib­lings, appar­ent­ly, and every­one has come under fire, even the nor­mal­ly imper­vi­ous Hermione. So it’s back to the vet late this after­noon, after pick­up. Avery can come along and hold his hand. Per­haps it’s time to drop the cosy aro­mather­a­py and move into some­thing real­ly effec­tive, like scotch.

And I have an extra hus­band at home today. He was meant to be in India, but for rea­sons lost in the mists of offi­cial­dom, his visa nev­er came through, so he’s perched dis­con­so­late­ly on the sofa, look­ing odd­ly out of place on a Mon­day, mut­ter­ing under his breath and feel­ing ter­ri­bly dis­ap­point­ed. Then I came into my study and here is a sad lit­tle arti­cle sit­ting in the print­er, all about Ban­ga­lore. Poor guy. But Avery was thrilled to have him here this morn­ing to come with us to school. She was swing­ing her new ten­nis rack­et and look­ing men­ac­ing­ly at the sky, dar­ing it to rain and spoil her first les­son at school. Last Mon­day it did­n’t so much rain as look as if it COULD all day, so who­ev­er was in charge can­celled the les­son and boy was she unpop­u­lar for the rest of the week. We have to hope for bet­ter things today.

My agen­da today is sin­gu­lar­ly dull: I must put all your names on our change of address card envelopes, not that you’re pant­i­ng to mail some­thing to me in this day of elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but you nev­er know. Then I have scads of pho­tos to put in my album to bring it up to date after Avery’s birth­day par­ty in Novem­ber. I do this pure­ly for John’s moth­er, who loves noth­ing more than sit­ting on the floor of the liv­ing room and leaf­ing through album after album, look­ing earnest­ly at pic­tures she’s seen a thou­sand times, not to men­tion that she took most of them! But this time it will be more fun, because we’ve tak­en them all and it will all be new. His par­ents are due to arrive in 10 days or so for a long-await­ed vis­it, which will be a spe­cial treat. Fun to show them around our lives. But in the mean­time, these tasks make for rather a limp­ing sort of admin­is­tra­tive day, punc­tu­at­ed only by laun­dry, whooppee!

But to fin­ish about the horse show. The names of the hors­es are like music: Cortaflex Amber du Mon­toix, Sodex­co Van Essen, Saffi­er, Van Der Brand Kleek, Roal Von Raphael. We actu­al­ly rec­og­nized lots of hors­es and rid­ers from the Sheffield Show, and I can imag­ine you’d eas­i­ly devel­op alle­giances if you went to a series of events. And the shop­ping oppor­tu­ni­ties were unbe­liev­able: on either side of sev­er­al long grassy avenues were white can­vas tents filled with STUFF. It was very like the Hamp­tons Clas­sic in that way. Had we been in the mar­ket we could have bought Avery an entire hunt habit, com­plete with silk-lined jack­et with vel­vet pip­ing. There were sad­dle shops from France, bri­dle com­pa­nies from Italy, every kind of horsey cloth­ing (I mean for peo­ple), jew­el­ry, car­ry­ing case, boot, you name it, that you could pos­si­bly want. And the hats! You could go to Ascot straight from the show. My favorite item how­ev­er is the “ship­ping fuzzy.” I want to have a pony and a trail­er just so I can buy some ship­ping fuzzies, which are squishy sheep­skin-like pads you attach to the pony’s bri­dle so that her face does not get scratched dur­ing the jour­ney in the box to the show. And the peo­ple! There were spe­cial shiny badges that denot­ed one as “Groom,” “Rid­er,” “Press,” and most cov­et­ed prob­a­bly, “Own­er.” Some bor­der­line smack­able peo­ple just ooz­ing lux­u­ry with too much jew­el­ry and spoiled chil­dren. Lots of tweed and vel­vet and high shiny boots. And tiny, tiny lit­tle girls in reg­u­la­tion yel­low jodh­purs and stub­by plaits show­ing under their vel­vet hel­mets, end­ing in lit­tle red rib­bon bows. Appar­ent­ly all rib­bons must be red and sub­dued, unlike the vari­ety and size of the bows at Amer­i­can shows. Very sweet.

The best event was last, the Young Rid­er Accu­mu­la­tor Show Jump­ing. I remem­bered it from the British Open in Sheffield, the event where each jump is worth pro­gres­sive­ly more than the last and at the end there is a ridicu­lous­ly high jump that can gar­ner the rid­er 20 points if she’s suc­cess­ful, and get 20 points tak­en away if she’s not. The dra­ma! There’s noth­ing more excit­ing than a rid­er who gets all the way through all ten jumps with­out knock­ing any­thing over (and it’s against the clock, which makes it even more nail-bit­ing), and then the announc­er won­ders over the loud­speak­er, “Will Gem­ma take the risk? Is the Jok­er going to make or break this course?” and then we all hang in breath­less silence to see if she goes for the high one, and… a per­fect score! Once again, near­ly all girls, and then one won­ders where they all go in the tran­si­tion from Young to Mature rid­er. A mys­tery to me. And where are all the men train­ing? There aren’t any at Avery’s barn in Wim­ble­don! I mean there are men, but no boys. Some­one must explain it to me someday.

Just at the end of the Accu­mu­la­tor, a light rain began to fall and in the sky above the are­na was an enor­mous rain­bow! A fit­ting end to a real­ly excit­ing day. I sped off to the food tent with pock­ets full of mon­ey and came away with a sub­lime­ly mature ched­dar cheese wedge, a lit­tle jar of amaz­ing tiny balls of Saint Mar­wenne goat’s cheese sus­pend­ed in spicy sun­flower oil, from the Neet Foods peo­ple at Tre­lay Farm, Marham­church, Bude, Corn­wall. I love address­es like that. The brochure for the Cor­nish farm reveals, “Dur­ing the Cru­sade the Duke of Corn­wall was kid­napped and duly held for ran­som by the Sara­cens. The Sara­cens ran­som demands were met by the peo­ple of Corn­wall who paid for his release with 15 cir­cu­lar Gold Bezant coins. To this day the Cross of Corn­wall depicts 15 cir­cu­lar Gold Bezant coins for this trans­ac­tion. For our Saint Mar­wenne cir­cu­lar balls of cream cheese, we demand noth­ing in return except your plea­sure and appre­ci­a­tion of their dis­tinc­tive taste.”

Well, that and two pounds fifty pence per jar, but who’s being picky now.

Also I picked up a big round sour­dough bread from Dayles­ford Organ­ic, and some beau­ti­ful Scot­tish smoked salmon from The Organ­ic Smoke­house, Clun­bury Hall, Clun­bury, Craven Arms, Shrop­shire. Now why can’t we have address­es like that in Amer­i­ca? I’m sure it makes the food taste bet­ter. The Smoke­house peo­ple, Michael and Deb­bie Leviseur, were love­ly, ask­ing how the jump­ing was going, had the Queen looked to be hav­ing a good day out? “She were here yes­ter­day, which was a treat,” the lady said as she wrapped my salmon. “Sur­round­ed by secu­ri­ty she were, and the reporters! You could­n’t shake a stick at them, they were so thick around her.” And the man piped up, “ ‘Twere a great plea­sure to see her, was­n’t it Deb­bie? You feel as if you know her, don’t you, from all them pic­tures you see in the mag­a­zines. And there is she is, as per­fect as can be. Now Prince Philip, he were here lat­er that after­noon. Just in a tweed cap as I might be myself, all alone. No one noticed him a bit.”

I whee­dled a closed farm­stand into part­ing with a bunch of per­fect toma­toes on the vine, and then they did­n’t let me pay for them! The sweet own­er, one C.J. Shel­drake of Beau­mont Farm, Priest Hill, Old Wind­sor, Berk­shire, averred, “No, it’s a plea­sure, and a prop­er end to the day. You enjoy, now.” We trudged rather weari­ly past the wis­te­ria-cov­ered walls sur­round­ing the cas­tle grounds, and caught the train to Water­loo, then the bus to Mar­ble Arch where we col­lapsed with our pic­nic din­ner and an ear­ly bed.