stop the train, please!

I remem­ber last year at this time I felt that the world was spin­ning much too fast. It must be to do with the age of my child, and there­fore the myr­i­ad activ­i­ties that spread their ten­ta­cles into our adult lives, which with­out her would involve most­ly laun­dry, scoop­ing the lit­ter­box and blog­ging. Suf­fice to say that life with an 11-year-old with many diverse inter­ests fills up very quick­ly indeed. It’s near­ly all good, it’s just… too much! Tonight we are all exhaust­ed, and pack­ing still beck­ons. Tomor­row we go to Con­necti­cut for Christ­mas! But first, let me tell you about the last few crazy days. Some of it might be stuff you’d want to do in Lon­don next hol­i­day sea­son, but most­ly I want to record it all in hopes that next year I’ll remem­ber how insane every­thing was and SLOW DOWN. My bet is, how­ev­er, on an exact repeat in 2008.

Well, after my fab­u­lous encounter with Matthew on Mon­day, the week pro­gressed to morn­ing rehearsals at All Souls church for the after­noon car­ol ser­vice. I have to say “ser­vice,” because this aus­tere terms explains why we can’t CLAP which I find ter­ri­ble. Espe­cial­ly for the lit­tle lit­tles, who seem so puz­zled at the end of their per­for­mances to face… silence! The rehearsal went very smooth­ly with applause (a rehearsal!) from Mrs D and Miss C, and we felt very good about it! Then some Christ­mas shop­ping to fill in the hour or so between rehearsal and our lunch togeth­er. And a tip for you all? Do NOT go to the St George’s Hotel restau­rant for lunch! Ever. It is, as was reput­ed, the most gor­geous view of what I sup­pose you’d call The Greater Maryle­bone Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area, you could see for miles, but the scal­lops were, in a word, ined­i­ble, and oth­er ladies’ toma­to soup looked com­plete­ly for­get­table. Sor­ry, but stan­dards are standards.

Thence to the per­for­mance, and the entire con­cert was just gor­geous. From the tiny lit­tles bare­ly able to squeak out “It’s a Baby,” to the senior choir and vio­lin­ists so impres­sive, and our own moth­ers’ song, it was very touch­ing and love­ly. Lots of tis­sues need­ed on all sides. Final­ly out, to the school for every­one to gath­er togeth­er back­packs, change clothes, and off with Jamie and her moth­er, plus Anna and Ellie, to the Hyde Park Win­ter Won­der­land!

Now, as bit­ter cold as it was, I’d def­i­nite­ly go back. A beau­ti­ful sort of Lon­don Eye fer­ris wheel thingy (too scary for me, but John said it was gor­geous), a very nice carousel, a cou­ple of mild­ly scary rides and a nice Ger­man mar­ket with orna­ments and oth­er stock­ing stuffers. But COLD! And we could not get tick­ets for the skat­ing rink, but from the report from on high, it was much too crowd­ed for real skat­ing any­way. A word to the wise.

The next day dawned so ear­ly! Avery off to the last half day of school, and I for some last-minute Christ­mas shop­ping, then pick­ing her up and dash­ing off to lunch at the beloved Man­darin Kitchen with Avery’s school friend Sophia and her moth­er Susan. Deli­cious, and I tried to keep my mind from the fact that I was hav­ing din­ner… there! That night. A request from Beck­y’s hus­band Mark. From lunch to the skat­ing rink at Queensway to watch a tru­ly nee­dle-in-the-eye­ball per­for­mance of “Sleep­ing Beau­ty,” per­formed by that sad­dest of ath­letes: the mid­dle-aged, aver­age skater. I just would­n’t! I learned what I love about skat­ing: watch­ing my child skate, or mind-bog­gling pro­fes­sion­als. No one in between, sor­ry! But the sec­ond half (one and a half hours into it, eergh, my feet have nev­er been so cold) was much bet­ter: very short ren­di­tions of pop­u­lar songs by lots of dif­fer­ent skaters, very impres­sive and fun to watch. And most impor­tant, inspi­ra­tional to the girls. Still, WAS I glad when it came to an end! We raced home to get ready to drop Avery at Anna’s and go out to din­ner with her par­ents, and again a sim­ply love­ly evening. Bril­liant con­ver­sa­tion about all the places they have lived, all the places we have lived, vis­it­ed, etc. And anoth­er very late night!

Up this morn­ing to dis­cuss all this, and then get ready for… the Olympia Horse Show! I remem­bered to pack enough anti­his­t­a­mines to get me through, and the show-jump­ing was stu­pen­dous. The crowds at the shop­ping! The Shet­land Pony races were adorable, the dog agili­ty hilar­i­ous, and the Cos­sacks very impres­sive. By the time Avery and Beck­y’s girls had giv­en their all to the char­i­ty raf­fle and come away with sev­er­al com­plete­ly unnec­es­sary stuffed ponies, and the Christ­mas finale had tak­en place, the noise lev­el was unbe­liev­able. We came home in a sort of daze of fun, admi­ra­tion, and also a grow­ing sense of scratch­i­ness. Time for some relax­ation. And I can report a culi­nary exper­i­ment gone very, very right. Give it a try.

Roast Chick­en With­out You
(serves four with soup leftovers)

1 large roast­ing chick­en, prefer­ably organic
1 tsp each: dried oregano, basil and thyme leaves
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup chick­en stock
1 lemon, halved
3 tbsps butter

Place your chick­en on a sheet of tin­foil in a large bak­ing dish. Sprin­kle with herbs, pour wine and stock around, stuff with lemon and smear with but­ter. Place in a 100 degree centi­grade (280 degrees fahren­heit) oven and GO AWAY. Leave it for SIX HOURS. Even more, prob­a­bly. Come home, baste it. Pour the juices into a gravy sep­a­ra­tor, whisk a dust­ing of flour into the juices in a skil­let and add a table­spoon of cream. Heat through. Serve the sliced roast chick­en with mashed pota­toes and red pep­pers that you’ve cooked down in olive oil until they’re caramel‑y. So comforting.

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Well, we’re packed. We’re still irri­ta­ble, a bit, which I put down to too much activ­i­ty, all of it won­der­ful, but… too much. Time for a good night’s sleep, trav­el tomor­row, and arrival at the bliss that is Red Gate Farm. Mer­ry Christ­mas everyone!