we belong now

Library cards! We saun­tered today past the nasty Amer­i­can Embassy to pass Mount Street (whose sort of secret gar­dens fea­tured in a “Spooks” episode star­ring my dar­ling crush actor, be still my heart), and into the love­ly May­fair Pub­lic Library. I brought along my tick­ets to the Nation­al The­atre actor dis­cus­sion evenings, which had been post­ed to me, as proof of our res­i­dence. It’s the tini­est lit­tle place, with about enough books to get Avery through our trip to Sheffield tomor­row and POS­SI­BLY back again, but pos­si­bly not. Still, it felt love­ly to get a library card avail­able only to those lucky enough to live with­in the city of West­min­ster. We came away with stacks of books, among them a cou­ple of audio books I could nev­er get either at home or find in print here, so we were both hap­py. Stopped to get a sand­wich for me (since Avery had devoured her weight in home­made lemon blue­ber­ry cake before we left home), and the lady behind the counter came out to ask “lovey” what she was read­ing. “Oh, I do love a good detec­tive sto­ry, although mind you, I often read the last page first,” she con­fessed. “So do I!” exclaimed Avery in the per­fect Eng­lish accent that comes out when she real­ly wants to fit in. “I often do it if some­thing sad hap­pens in the book, to make sure that it gets itself worked out hap­pi­ly before the end.”

So we stopped to read and eat in Grosvenor Square, firm­ly fac­ing toward the embassy but pre­fer­ring to con­cen­trate on the entire­ly spu­ri­ous but impres­sive stand­ing bronze sculp­ture of FDR. It was a warm, spring­like day and the Square was peo­pled by babies and their care­tak­ers, ladies and their small dogs, and heart­warm­ing­ly many of them seemed to know each oth­er. My dear friend Alyssa called and I got caught up on gos­sip, real estate and oth­er­wise, occu­py­ing our dear for­mer home. I also got an email today from a PS 234 moth­er who offers the stun­ning news that Avery’s for­mer prin­ci­pal, the for­mi­da­ble Sandy Bridges, has a bun in the oven! And con­ve­nient­ly to go with it, a new hus­band over the Christ­mas hol­i­days. Via email, John remarked that this sce­nario flies with much greater elan and suc­cess than a sim­i­lar sto­ry would at King’s Col­lege, Lon­don! After my phone call, and ascer­tain­ing that a love­ly young cou­ple in the square with two adorable chil­dren were in fact father and nan­ny, I felt the time had come to appre­ci­ate prop­er­ly my small sprout, so in the sun­shine she sat on my lap and let me squeeze her while she read her library book over my shoul­der, and I felt that all the parts of the world were in the prop­er places, to have such a kind small per­son to call my own, on a sun­ny day in Lon­don. Some­day all too soon she’ll be moan­ing, “Oh, MOTH­ER,” when I want a bit of a cud­dle, so I have to enjoy it while I can.

A qui­et after­noon and then din­ner out at ASK, our local piz­za and sal­ad place, and a love­ly din­ner con­ver­sa­tion just the two of us, my true favorite. Home to tuck her in, and where was her tiny lady­bug, she of the dis­ap­pear­ing act in the cor­po­rate flat? “Oh, sor­ry, I unwit­ting­ly took her upstairs this morn­ing,” Avery apol­o­gised. She can do almost any­thing, if she explains it as “unwit­ting­ly.” I’m such a suck­er for vocab­u­lary. Tomor­row to see hors­es galore, and we’ll let you know how it goes.