piles of paper

Well, I’m ashamed to say I have noth­ing of any impor­tance to tell you about from my grey, dis­mal town today. Aren’t the first weeks after Christ­mas hard to rec­om­mend. All the bor­ing things you (or at least I) shoved to the far­thest cor­ners of your desk in favour of receipts for glam­orous presents, Christ­mas cards from farflung friends, invi­ta­tions to con­certs and par­ties… all those bor­ing things come back to bite you in the bottom.

So Tues­day came, I dropped Avery off at school feel­ing some­what for­lorn as her straight lit­tle back walked up the steps, unbent by the enor­mous back­pack full of her respon­si­bil­i­ties. I came home, looked at my desk and thought, “I won­der what’s under there?” and lift­ed up the giant file fold­er full of Christ­mas cards to find… all sorts of dread­ful things I had neglect­ed to do! School fees? Had­n’t paid them (it’s lucky they let her in the door). Had I signed her up for her school singing lessons? Nope. Or renewed her beloved Sat­ur­day act­ing class? Not exact­ly. Then there was the dona­tion to the Moor­land Mousie Trust that she was so keen to make, after her expe­ri­ences on Exmoor. I had­n’t seen that form in WEEKS. Nev­er mind, off it went, along with insur­ance forms for last fal­l’s doc­tor vis­its, and birth­day cards for neglect­ed chums, and all those recipes I cut out of mag­a­zines at Christ­mas? What­ev­er made me think I’d make “Stem Gin­ger and Cran­ber­ry Fudge”? I don’t even have a sweet tooth! But there it was, along with instruc­tions for mak­ing the Ghent altar­piece out of cro­quem­bouche. Well, I exag­ger­ate, but that’s the sort of hol­i­day ambi­tion that I nev­er ever achieve, but always plan to around Decem­ber 15.

What I’m not get­ting down to with any enthu­si­asm is my even­tu­al dri­ving test. I hope no traf­fic cop reads this blog, because I am def­i­nite­ly, but def­i­nite­ly super ille­gal. Would you believe that John gave me, for Christ­mas, two spe­cial books about traf­fic laws and park­ing reg­u­la­tions in Lon­don? Let the bells chime. But seri­ous­ly, I have to buck­le down. I am very lazy when he is away and almost nev­er move the car from its prime park­ing spot. I tell myself I need the exer­cise and walk every­where, but tru­ly, it’s just lazi­ness and fear that I’ll com­mit some minor infrac­tion and my dirty lit­tle secret will be found out.

Avery’s nerves are reach­ing some­thing of a fever pitch about these dread­ful exams, which begin on Fri­day and con­tin­ue for the fol­low­ing two Fri­days. To the pow­ers-that-be in British girls’ edu­ca­tion: have the wretched things BEFORE Christ­mas, and have them three days in a row. For­get this drag­ging it out over three weeks. It’s tor­ture. Yes­ter­day she actu­al­ly told a taxi dri­ver that it’s impos­si­ble to be friends with one’s school­mates dur­ing Jan­u­ary because if you think about it, “we’re all com­pet­ing for the same spots in school. So we sort of learn to not think about each oth­er too much, until next month.” Well, that’s just awful!

I hate to think what I have con­tributed to this state of affairs, but actu­al­ly I am pret­ty sure the answer is: not much. I real­ly lack the com­pet­i­tive spir­it nec­es­sary for the Olympic sport called “get­ting your child into the right school.” First of all, I have very lit­tle con­vic­tion that there IS a “right school.” Sec­ond, as soon as any­thing becomes a com­pe­ti­tion, I want to with­draw. This slack­er atti­tude is in direct con­trast to my hus­band’s instant wish to turn every­thing into a con­test, so between our influ­ences I sup­pose Avery will come out nor­mal. I hope.

Ah, well, at times like this you can but clear your desk, and cook some salmon. I’m quite sure all the Omega What­ev­er oils will increase her test scores by at least nought point something.

Tagli­atelle with Salmon and Broccolini
(serves four)

1 1/2 lb organ­ic fresh salmon (in one fil­let if possible)
3 bay leaves
1 tsp Mal­don sea salt
fresh ground pepper
3 tbsps creme fraiche
juice of half lemon
3/4 lb tagliatelle
large bunch (per­haps 8 stems?) ten­der­stem broc­col­i­ni, cut in small pieces
1/2 cup light cream
salt to taste

In a bak­ing dish lined with alu­mini­um foil, lay the salmon skin side down. Lay the bay leaves across, then sprin­kle with salt and pep­per and smear (hate that word) the creme fraiche across the fil­let with a but­ter knife. Sprin­kle the lemon juice over all and bake at 425 degrees (about 215 cel­sius) for 25 min­utes or until done in the mid­dle, but not overdone!

Mean­while, steam the broc­col­i­ni just until it turns bright green and set aside.

At the same time, boil the tagli­atelle for the rec­om­mend­ed time (about 11 min­utes, prob­a­bly). Heat the light cream in the microwave or a lit­tle saucepan. Remove the salmon skin and the bay leaves from the bak­ing dish and then break up the salmon into bite-size pieces with a fork. Toss gen­tly with the tagli­atelle, broc­col­i­ni and warm cream and salt to taste.

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This is LOVE­LY. Of course you could always serve the broc­col­i­ni in whole stems on the side if you like, but I like the green and pink of the salmon togeth­er. This is a hit with a child, believe it or not. Of course just to be per­verse, Avery claims to pre­fer ordi­nary broc­coli flo­rets, just because I do not. So we have to com­pro­mise: some­times one, some­times the oth­er. And inter­spersed with the Undis­put­ed King of All Veg­eta­bles, the red pep­per sauteed in olive oil.

Well, I just got a call from Avery’s school inform­ing me that my tuition cheque spec­i­fied “2007.” I do this on cheques all through­out the month of Jan­u­ary, not from any evil desire to post­pone pay­ment for a cou­ple of days, but because I just can­not get my mind around the new year in time for the first few bills. So I must rec­ti­fy it and get ready for “Enchant­ed, Part Three,” after school. Or rather “Enchant­ed, Part One, Seen for the Third Time.” Sigh, the things we do for our children.