three bed­rooms, one ner­vous breakdown

Life has tak­en on a pecu­liar­ly fre­net­ic qual­i­ty late­ly, encom­pass­ing a week’s trip back to the States to vis­it my beloved fam­i­ly, which involved more home decor dis­cus­sions and shop­ping than I could ever have imag­ined.  As you can see from her gor­geous plant room above, my moth­er has a genius for cozy com­fort and she is sim­ply over­flow­ing with ideas to fresh­en up my child­hood house.  There was time for a night out with old friends, the best of times.

Then back home to Lon­don to pick up the threads of real life, includ­ing an after­noon spent cel­e­brat­ing John’s birth­day by hav­ing tiny Turk­ish fish nib­ble on our feet — I’m not mak­ing that up!  I also have spent the last week try­ing mad­ly to recov­er from a mas­sive cough I was gra­cious­ly giv­en on the plane over to the States.   Every win­ter seems to include one of those, does­n’t it, where you throw your back out from hack­ing away and then can’t stand up straight for a week or two.  March.  A month to get through.

And World Book Night!  Sev­er­al pub­lish­ers here in the UK got togeth­er with the inten­tion of pub­lish­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing 1 MIL­LION copies of some of the most pop­u­lar con­tem­po­rary books.  Then they put out a call online to the pub­lic to vol­un­teer to give them away!  I applied, went through the whole process of select­ing a book and being select­ed as a giv­er, and yes­ter­day acquired my own tem­po­rary pile of “Toast,” by Nigel Slater.

Ten copies have found their homes so far — some to friends, some to strangers like our gro­cery cashier yes­ter­day, and a guy hang­ing around the Maryle­bone High Street with a cute pup­py — and anoth­er 28 will make their way to my Lost Prop­er­ty vol­un­teers via a stack in our room at school.  The remain­ing copies?  Not sure.  John want­ed in the worst way for one to go to a prop­er Lon­don bob­by yes­ter­day, but there was none to be seen.

And of course house-hunt­ing, which is try­ing under the best of cir­cum­stances and even more so when it’s not our idea to move.  I think it’s the first time in all our 14+ moves that we have been at the behest of oth­er peo­ple.  Being sim­ply turfed out because our land­lords want to sell, no mat­ter how incon­ve­nient the tim­ing for us, is frus­trat­ing to say the least.  And it is dou­bly annoy­ing liv­ing through both ends of the process — “host­ing” end­less groups of peo­ple who say, “I hate to invade your home,” and also invad­ing end­less fam­i­lies while WE say, “We hate to invade your home.”

We are torn right now between a tiny, per­fect doll­house of a house and a ram­bling, encom­pass­ing barn of a house.  Each in a love­ly neigh­bor­hood, each offer­ing its own delights and bur­dens.  John, Avery and I each have our lists of respon­si­bil­i­ties to make our move more palat­able: mine includes going through all my spices and herbs and throw­ing out the stale ones, recy­cling their glass jars, mak­ing lists of what to replace.  I have tak­en a huge pile of moth­e­at­en sweaters to a repair lady in Chiswick to have their holes darned.  John has put all our mis­match­ing drink­ing glass­es: chips and bro­ken han­dles and all, into a card­board box to be tak­en to Oxfam and we are start­ing over with per­fect­ly bor­ing, inex­pen­sive but MATCH­ING new glass­es.  Avery is going through her Amer­i­can Girl dolls and all their belong­ings, to give away to a young friend.

And she has cut off all her hair!  While I was in Amer­i­ca, I received this pho­to in my email box.  Hair all gone!

How did she become so grownup suddenly?

I think the most relax­ing thing to do would be to relive the sec­ond half of our Som­er­set adven­tures, which now seem so long ago, but I don’t want to for­get such good times.  It is impor­tant to hold their mem­o­ry in reserve, to assure us that the crazy days we are liv­ing through now will not last, and we’ll be cozy and set­tled some­where new soon.  And the peace­ful times in the coun­try are always there to be enjoyed, just a Land­mark Trust book­ing away.

Remem­ber our bril­liant bell­ring­ing friends?  They kind­ly told us of the glo­ri­ous farmer’s mar­ket to be vis­it­ed in near­by Wells, on every Wednes­day.  And so we went.  Gor­geous scal­lops, arti­san cheeses, a glo­ri­ous bunch of curly pars­ley, bacon, a deli­cious cup of cof­fee and sausages in a bap.  Love­ly, all in the shad­ow of Wells Cathedral.

And cheesy feet!  The ulti­mate cock­tail snack.

Puff pas­try, in the shape of a per­fect tod­dler’s foot. Mmm.

From the mar­ket we wan­dered around the Cathe­dral Close and came upon pos­si­bly the most beau­ti­ful street in the world.  Vic­ar’s Close, now the home of many of the music stu­dents and teach­ers of Wells Cathe­dral School.  We read lat­er that the street was designed to nar­row at the top, so as to encour­age the illu­sion of its being longer and taller than it real­ly is.  Sim­ply ethe­re­al­ly beautiful.

And home to pos­si­bly the cra­zi­est dog on earth, who for some rea­son insist­ed on leap­ing up against his house, as if to enter through the window.

We aban­doned Crazy Dog final­ly and walked slow­ly back to the Cathe­dral, admir­ing all the school­boys rush­ing past with their flop­py hair and musi­cal instru­ments slung about their shoul­ders, shout­ing to each oth­er and look­ing quite accept­able as boyfriend mate­r­i­al for Avery, even­tu­al­ly.  Some­how they seemed undaunt­ed by the grandeur of their surroundings.

We wait­ed for the lit­tle clock ring­ing fel­lows to do their job.

We took our tour of the cathe­dral itself, admir­ing in par­tic­u­lar the tomb of one bish­op who seemed to have attract­ed the most tal­ent­ed of the medieval graf­fi­ti artists.

And the Cathe­dral kit­ty, a stal­wart young man who led us to his bas­ket in the Shop and prompt­ly went to sleep.

We final­ly took our leave of Wells, dri­ving home in the coun­try twilight.

We set­tled in for a lux­u­ri­ous sup­per of scal­lop sal­ad, its ingre­di­ents cour­tesy of the Wells market.

Warm Scal­lop Sal­ad with Beets, Bacon and Goats Cheese

(serves 2)

12 large scallops

2 tsps butter

4 medi­um beets, roasted

200 grams goats cheese

hand­ful rock­et leaves

200 grams bacon, cut into small lardons

dress­ing:

good glug olive oil

2 tbsps mayonnaise

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

juice of 1 lemon

sea salt and black pep­per to taste

Heat but­ter in a heavy fry­ing pan and cook scal­lops JUST until done, about 1 minute on each side, maybe more if they are very large.  Set aside.  Cut beets into bite-size pieces, set aside.

Line a large serv­ing plat­ter with rock­et and scat­ter goats cheese over.  Fry bacon until it is crisp and has giv­en up its fat.  Drain.  Place all ingre­di­ents on the rock­et and mix dress­ing ingre­di­ents until thor­ough­ly mixed.  Pour dress­ing over, and ENJOY.

Our last day in Som­er­set we spent first wan­der­ing around our grave­yard (where I spent evenings shiv­er­ing on the phone to my moth­er, since it was the only place where I could get a prop­er sig­nal!).  There was, of course, a kitty.

And we ven­tured into the church to admire those BELL ROPES.  I swear, I will learn.  After mov­ing, per­haps?  Does Chiswick con­tain a ring of bells?  I shall find out.

Final­ly for our last adven­ture: a climb up to Glas­ton­bury Tor, a medieval remains of a church, perched as high up on top of a steep hill as can be imag­ined, pro­vid­ing the most glo­ri­ous views of three counties.

What a scary walk up!  Def­i­nite “oops, I lost my wife” opportunities.

And there was our Som­er­set adven­ture.  Home we came, to pick Avery up at Euston Sta­tion, “fresh” (or rather, very much not) from her Cum­bri­an jol­ly time, climb­ing hills much high­er than ours, writ­ing and act­ing in orig­i­nal plays, jug­gling the social needs of four girls aged 8–14.

And these peace­ful times will come again.  We have come to real­ize that the process of mov­ing involves sev­er­al weeks of choos­ing a house — dif­fi­cult and stress­ful — a week of PURE HELL which is liv­ing out of box­es, about three weeks of medi­um hell which is unpack­ing box­es and get­ting rid of box­es.  Then life set­tles down to its pre­dictable round of chauf­fer­ing Avery to the skat­ing rink, act­ing class, the stable.

I promise I’ll be back.