sticky sum­mer Lon­don adventures

As I sit at my desk, mus­ing over what to con­coct for the Fos­ter Lane ring­ing din­ner on Sat­ur­day, the air out­side siz­zles.  It’s been a month-long heat-wave and anoth­er month is expect­ed.  Nor­mal­ly this sit­u­a­tion would have me in a tail­spin of despair, as I tru­ly hate being hot, but truth be told, our house­hold is in such a glow of pride in Avery that we real­ly don’t mind any­thing else that is going on.

She got a first!

Now, for those of you unfa­mil­iar with the British sys­tem of uni­ver­si­ty exam results, this will be mean­ing­less, so I’ll explain.  After the (usu­al­ly) three years of uni­ver­si­ty work are over, the stu­den­t’s exam results and essay results are tab­u­lat­ed and a des­ig­na­tion giv­en.  Lots of stu­dents get what is called a 2:1, which is a high sec­ond, or a 2:2, a low­er sec­ond.  But a small­er pro­por­tion get a “first,” which means a first-class degree.  That’s our Avery!  She worked so hard.

We gave her a first-edi­tion of “Gaudy Night,” our mutu­al favourite among all the mys­tery nov­els by Dorothy L Say­ers, as a con­grat­u­la­tions present.  She was pleased!

We couldn’t be proud­er of her.  It has been a long, chal­leng­ing, exhaust­ing three years, even just to watch from a dis­tance and to try to sup­port as best we can.  I think I speak for all of us when I say the main emo­tion is relief.    My friend Tom said it best.  “It’s like when you win the World Cup.  Jour­nal­ists always ask if you’re elat­ed, but all you can think of is how relieved you are it’s over.”

So this hot Eng­lish sum­mer has already had its high­light, for all of us.

Mean­while, as she worked and worked toward, and then wait­ed for, her results, lots has been hap­pen­ing in our Lon­don lives.  Art!  The famed Sum­mer Exhi­bi­tion at the Roy­al Acad­e­my was its usu­al high­light, and while we did buy some­thing small, my two actu­al favourites from show had already sold, one a very clever latch-hooked rug by Emi­ly Laser­witz, fea­tur­ing redact­ed counter-ter­ror­ism texts!

The oth­er, a series of burned marks relat­ing some­how to King’s Hos­pi­tal, by Jack­ie Brown.

These were two shin­ing exam­ples of obses­sive-com­pul­sive, mono­chro­mat­ic works by women that had Kris­ten Fred­er­ick­son Con­tem­po­rary Art writ­ten all over them!  Glob­al­ly, how­ev­er, since the show was curat­ed by Grayson Per­ry, the watch­word was COLOUR and lots of it.  Colour, and fig­ures, nei­ther of which floats my boat.  But it’s always good fun.  We ran into our Eng­lish archi­tect Andrew Waugh, whose design for a ceme­tery in Ger­many won a spot in the cov­et­ed Archi­tec­ture Room!  He is such a rock star.

John being John, we’ve been tak­ing all our myr­i­ad vis­i­tors over to Pot­ters Fields to check on the progress of our build­ing (none, but in our imag­i­na­tions).  First came our dar­ling col­lege friend Jeff, whose pres­ence always pleas­es.  He is one of the friend­liest souls there is.

Then our Tribeca friends Ken and Priscil­la, fresh from their flight from New York, gra­cious­ly agree­ing to meet us there!

I always love how they say, “You’ll know us by our glass­es and wear­ing all black.”  Hel­lo, New York in London.

Then came John’s child­hood friends Den­nis and Camille, all the way from Water­loo, Iowa!

They came to din­ner after their vis­it to the plot of dirt, and pored over the plans with live­ly inter­est (and creamy crab tart as well).

A lus­cious summer’s day took us as well to Lam­beth Palace, home of the Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury and to one of the most beau­ti­ful gar­dens in Cen­tral Lon­don.  I thought I was obsessive-compulsive!

There is, as well, a sim­ply gor­geous library.  I feast­ed my eyes on all the books that dat­ed from my “Out­lander” Jaco­bite peri­od, and much ear­li­er than that, too.

What rich­es there are at our feet in this glo­ri­ous city.

See­ing such a well-organ­ised library inspired me to come home and effect a much-need­ed purge of my own shelves.  Near­ly three years into liv­ing in this flat, too many books had come in and none had gone out.  “Please,” John begged, “can you do some­thing about these flat sur­faces that are all book­shelves now?”  I had to admit he had a point.  Every­thing but the din­ing table had become a repos­i­to­ry for some­thing to read.  So I began in the liv­ing room, get­ting rid of over 100 books!

My bed­room shelf, nor­mal­ly filled with what­ev­er over­flow might seep in from oth­er rooms, became a per­fect vision of only chil­dren’s books, my real treasures.

What a mas­sive accom­plish­ment!  And Martha was hap­py to accept a deliv­ery of the reject­ed books at her place of employ­ment, a sim­ply heav­en­ly lit­tle used book­shop in Greenwich.

There has been a heart­warm­ing, tru­ly pre­cious vis­it to Fred­die and Angus, and of course their beau­ti­ful moth­er Claire.  How lucky was I in years gone by, to live a three-minute bike-ride away?  I remem­ber so clear­ly their tiny arms and legs that made me so ner­vous to insert them into cloth­ing.  Now they are strap­ping, hys­ter­i­cal­ly fun­ny lit­tle boys approach­ing five years old. WHAT?

There is some­thing about Fred­die’s expres­sion that speaks of a future filled with naughty laugh­ter.  I trea­sure these friends so much.

When Angus men­tioned that the straw­ber­ries I brought to our pic­nic weren’t very nice (total­ly true), Fred­die admon­ished him, “Angus, please don’t insult Kris­ten’s straw­ber­ries.  They were a present for us.”  I can’t decide which makes me laugh more, Angus’s hon­esty or Fred­die’s diplo­ma­cy!  It will be such fun to watch these two con­quer the world.

Of course I have been bell-ring­ing, although a recur­rence of a sprained knuck­le forced me on a short hia­tus.  It was won­der­ful to get back in the tow­er, espe­cial­ly to wit­ness with admi­ra­tion the accom­plish­ments of my cohorts, as I sat qui­et­ly for a moment.

I’ve final­ly mas­tered what is called “Tre­ble-bob­bing,” which means ring­ing the tre­ble bell (the small­est and there­fore the high­est in tone) in a series of slow­ing down and speed­ing up, all to pro­vide the reli­able back­bone for let­ting all the oth­er bells do their com­pli­cat­ed work.  It is so much fun to be a nec­es­sary and sup­port­ive mem­ber of the band.  Nat­u­ral­ly I bring snacks.

It is a nev­er-end­ing and var­ied plea­sure to cross the Bridge after prac­tice, rev­el­ling in the fun of ring­ing, and the con­vivial evening in the pub after.  What a mag­i­cal view.

Ring­ing isn’t always for fun, of course.  There are funer­als.  My love­ly, adored friend Col­in final­ly left us, aged 92.

I will nev­er for­get that I met him on the path to St Mary’s, Barnes, ready to ring for Sun­day ser­vices, at which he was a beloved parish­ioner.  The next day I came to the Tow­er, absolute­ly ter­ri­fied at the prospect of my immi­nent first Quar­ter Peal.  There, on the bell-cham­ber floor, was a card with the British flag on the cov­er.  “Good luck, dear Kris­ten – you will tri­umph!  Love, Col­in.”  He will be sore­ly missed by many, many people.

I was able to ring only a short bit because of my injured knuck­le, and prob­a­bly shouldn’t have rung at all, but… it was for Colin.

In cook­ing news, I have become a mem­ber of that select (and yes, obses­sive) group of peo­ple who make… sour­dough bread.  It is tan­ta­mount to a reli­gion, much like bee-keep­ing, fer­ment­ing, knit­ting, bell-ring­ing (there is an unsur­pris­ing and delight­ful Ven-dia­gram over­lap of all these won­der­ful skills).  As with many things, Orlan­do has been my oracle.

Heav­it­ree Sour­dough Starter

With these three full sin­gle-spaced pages of pre­cise and beau­ti­ful­ly word­ed instruc­tions, I’ve learnt to pro­duce if not a per­fect or pro­fes­sion­al­ly con­sis­tent loaf, at least a deli­cious and rather beau­ti­ful one.

You’d nev­er get £3.50 for it at Gail’s Bak­ery, but it is deli­cious, if not quite as high and per­fect­ly round as per­haps it should be.  But no one at home is complaining.

It’s tru­ly sour!  And with a del­i­cate tex­ture, a very crunchy crust and a sat­is­fy­ing feel­ing of home­ly sat­is­fac­tion to go with it, I make a loaf every few days.  The starter was a gift from Orlan­do, all the way from Exeter.  When I get back from our Amer­i­can hol­i­day, I will put my hand to con­coct­ing a NEO Bank­side starter and see how that gets on.

That’s right, we are head­ed to Amer­i­ca.  I actu­al­ly hes­i­tate to deem our upcom­ing weeks as a “hol­i­day,” because believe it or not, last month our beloved prop­er­ty was hit by a tornado.

It is heart­break­ing to see bro­ken win­dows, a hole in the roof, the giant tree that once held Avery’s child­hood swing felled, and most trag­i­cal­ly of all, no more Red Gate.  It is just “Farm” now, until our won­der­ful friend Jacque can get down to the busi­ness of replac­ing his own hard work from sev­er­al sum­mers ago.  Parts of the fence remain, but no gate.  We go on Mon­day, for a five-week trip, leav­ing Avery to her own devices and to hold down the fort and look after our kitties.

Speak­ing of kit­ties, Tacy has acquired a new addi­tion to her wardrobe.

Inspired by Orlan­do – he inspires so many things in this life! – and his cat Nola, we pur­chased for Tacy what some might call a har­ness and lead, but what Orlan­do (and so we) describe as a tunic.

We put it on Tacy up in the flat, car­ry her lit­er­al­ly kick­ing and scream­ing down the cor­ri­dor and down in the lift, and then let her run around.  Once down in the gar­den she is very hap­py, and proud of all the atten­tion she gets.  We all won­der how long it will take her to “realise” how much fun she will have once she is on the ground, and not go through the heart-rend­ing scream­ing stage of the endeavour.

Being me, I have nat­u­ral­ly had lots and lots of peo­ple around my table of late.  Tis the sea­son of over­seas vis­i­tors, and every­one comes round for din­ner and a catch-up.  My child­hood best friend Amy came, with her dar­ling hus­band Kirk, and we sat round the table eat­ing slow-braised chick­en thighs (link) and reminiscing.

“I hon­est­ly don’t know, Kris­ten, how we stayed friends all through high school.  You nev­er want­ed to do any­thing but stay home and read!”  This was per­fect­ly true, but she loved me anyway.

“Remem­ber sit­ting in your bath­tub togeth­er, Amy, and plan­ning how we would solve the Mid­dle East drought prob­lem by fill­ing up air­planes with water and then hav­ing a lever to push that would turn the bot­tom of the plane into a sieve?  You had a bath toy that did that, and we thought we were geniuses.”

Such fun, and to intro­duce them to Eliz­a­beth and Mad­die as well!

Kath­leen and her beau­ti­ful fam­i­ly came by for a roast­ed side of salmon and a chance to gos­sip about our New York con­nec­tions.  Sad­ly Avery was in the mid­dle of exams and could not join us – such a shame for her not to be able to reunite with her baby­hood and child­hood boon com­pan­ion, the divine Cici.

Isn’t it a ter­rif­ic joy to meet up with chil­dren whom you loved as lit­tle, devel­op­ing peo­ple, and to cel­e­brate the brave, tal­ent­ed, inde­pen­dent adults they’ve become?  It is one of the con­so­la­tions of no longer being young, really.

Final­ly the day came when we could dri­ve one more time down the motor­way to Oxford, to arrive in the con­trolled chaos of Avery’s rooms – books, clothes, cof­fee mak­er, kitchen­ware, bed linens, posters, dirty laun­dry, rub­bish, recy­cling – and make it all ready for an order­ly exit.  It’s a quite mis­er­able process that, hav­ing moved her in and out nine times in three years, not one of us will miss.

The sheer hard work and stress, repeat­ed so many times in such a short peri­od, almost, but not quite, spoiled the beau­ty and grandeur that is Oxford.  We are all three sad­der but wis­er peo­ple these three years lat­er, hav­ing swapped the wide-eyed, open-mouthed dis­be­lief at Avery’s being asso­ci­at­ed with such an august insti­tu­tion, for a more real­is­tic admis­sion of its pit­falls.  So much pres­sure, com­pe­ti­tion, and sheer hard work has, I’m sure, tinged Avery’s fresher’s thrill, but at the same time, all those things under­score the enor­mous achieve­ment of her degree.

Good­bye, Univ.

Part of me will miss Oxford, but I am beyond hap­py to have her home, safe and sound, com­plete with the lat­est Sas­soon look.

Last week saw me on one of the geeki­est and most enjoy­able after­noons of all time – a walk round Blooms­bury to chart the path of not only our dar­ling Dorothy L Say­ers in real life, but to cap­ture the steps of her sto­ried hero­ine, Har­ri­et Vane.  As a mem­ber of the DLS Soci­ety, I received an invi­ta­tion to join in the walk, and it couldn’t have been more fun.

The lines between fic­tion and real­i­ty became well and tru­ly blurred as we cel­e­brat­ed the taxi rank where Philip Boyes hailed his last fate­ful ride, and Meck­len­burg Square where both DLS and Har­ri­et Vane lived, the lat­ter lis­ten­ing to the sounds of a “rather errat­ic” ten­nis match.

And what about the butch­er shop where Miss Murchi­son bemoaned the lack of cuts of meat for sin­gle peo­ple?  It doesn’t exist any­more, but that didn’t stop us stand­ing about on the pave­ment, think­ing about it and quot­ing from the book.  I won­der how much oth­er knowl­edge has been pre­vent­ed from enter­ing my brain, sim­ply because the avail­able space is tak­en up with lines from DLS nov­els?  After all, as Lord Peter Wim­sey said, “I love the habit of quo­ta­tion.  It saves the effort of orig­i­nal thought.”

Was it this bar at which the unfor­tu­nate vic­tim ingest­ed what might have been arsenic, but turned out to be bicar­bon­ate of soda?  We thought so.

What fun.

There will be just two more of my social work out­ings before we head off, one last vis­it to my dar­ling Home-Start fam­i­ly.  We have decid­ed not to say good­bye, but to stay in touch.  As I explained to the lit­tle five-year-old girl, “Now when I come to vis­it you, it’s because it’s my job.  When I see you in Sep­tem­ber, it will be because we are friends.  That makes up for my not com­ing every week.”  It will be won­der­ful to be able to show you their beau­ti­ful faces, and not have to be con­tent with tak­ing pic­tures of the var­i­ous stray cats I meet on my jour­neys to see the family.

I will be able to share the gor­geous recipes that the mum has taught to me.  On Fri­day, there will be the final vis­it to my Fri­day after­noon Cook­ing Club!  We have hit upon a sig­na­ture dish.

Sinamin Row­ils

(makes 24)

This recipe makes me laugh a great deal, and “row­il” has entered our fam­i­ly vocab­u­lary with a vengeance, led by Martha who lis­ten to any sto­ry told about Avery, from child­hood to the present day.  What an addi­tion she has become to our lives.  The two of them, dressed to the nines for a night out, are a com­plete delight.

The “Sinamin Row­ils” are just one of the over 100 recipes that I’ve gath­ered for Vol­ume Two of “Tonight at 7.30,” whose future is look­ing very bright indeed.  More and more often, the dish­es I want to cook – Kore­an bar­be­cue, Chick­en Tonkat­su, “Vel­vet” Chick­en, tof­fee short­bread – aren’t in my cur­rent book, and I am dri­ven to look­ing up the recipes on my own blog!  There are lots of hoops to jump through between now and the book’s appear­ance, first and fore­most how to pay for it, sec­ond­ly, how to achieve the 40-some pho­tographs of fin­ished dish­es that I’d like to include.  But it will hap­pen.  Watch this space!

Last on my agen­da, before we depart, will be a lav­ish din­ner par­ty for my Fos­ter Lane ring­ing friends.  Yet again, the table will be set and the flat ready to make friends welcome.

And that will be the swan-song for our Lon­don sum­mer.  Next post – America!