It would have been impossible to be anything but completely charmed by Rob when I first met him. He looked like the original template for Indiana Jones with his sun-bleached sandy hair and toning suntan and a captivating white teeth smile. Dressed like Indiana, but without the hat, he came to school dressed as a Geography teacher with a wardrope of khaki and open-toe sandals for his 'other life'. The similarities between Rob and the character which George Lucas created had never really struck me before, but now, as I wait for Rob to arrive for dinner, it seems almost impossible that I missed it.
Rob and I first met when I went to work at a very unusual school in the heart of the Peak District where he was already teaching. The school was based in a wonderful old late Victorian Manor House set in several acres of its own grounds. The building had been bequested to the Education Services to be used solely for educational purposes and not to be sold. Unfortunately due to educational cutbacks it no longer exists, but in 2003/04 it was a wonderful facility with a very enlightened ethos behind it. We took disruptive and emotionally disturbed pupils from schools in inner Manchester who were on the borderline for being excluded from mainstream education, and tried to get them onto a better track.
Every morning the taxis from all over would arrive and the children would all pile out. They spent part of the week in their usual inner city schools and the other part with us. These hardened city kids would come armed with their expensive designer trainers, their attitude and anger, and try and make sense of a life that bore little relation to their own. All had a story to tell, if they let you in, and, between posturing and pent-up frustration they sometimes found a space to be someone different.
Rob's classes took Geography in a fairly loose sense. Much of our time seemed to focus on making Airfix model aircraft. It was good to see how absorbed in minute detail most of the kids could be at rare times and the class was often completely silent and intense except when they needed a little help with glue or paints.
There were lessons for the children in the mornings, all of whom were aged between about nine and fourteen, a really fantastic school lunch ( not like anything I've ever tasted in school before) with a wonderful cook serving the twenty or so kids and almost as many teachers, social workers and helpers. And then, best of all, in the afternoon we got to take them out for walks, visits and climbing in the Peak District.
At first they didn't know what to make of all this empty space and hills. They were bored with 'nothing to do' but walk, angry that they were forced to be here, uncooperative and often disruptive. But gradually they got used to this kind of empty freedom. They still moaned about going up the hills, complained when their perfect white trainers got sheep muck on them, and taunted each other; but they looked happier. Sometimes they would stop and look at things or notice a view. If it was pointed out to them they weren't interested. If they were made to play an organised game they resisted; but take them to the top of a hill and do nothing and these street-wise young lads (mainly) would lie down in their designer tracksuits and roll down the hill through puddles and sheep dung getting grass stains and mud on their backs, and start to laugh and smile. The anger would turn into celebration and they would be quieter and more subdued on the way back. A little more relaxed.
Most of these walks were led by Rob, now in his element in full Indiana mode. He would take them climbing on nearby rocks and he knew the terrain like the back of his hand. This made perfect sense when you knew that the other half of his life was spent over in Turkey leading guided walks in the hills and writing travel books. Here was a man who loved the life he lead, who eked the most out of every moment and experience. He brought you back to focus on the present, constantly, and it was absorbing and addictive. Somehow time seemed longer in his presence, as if you had managed to fit two days into one.
He had a calmness about him which never seemed to waver. I never saw him angry or frustrated when one of the children took a backward step or sought to ruin the activity. He always seemed completely in control of the situation, whatever the challenge he was ready. It's almost unnerving to be faced with someone who doesn't react the way most of us do. But it calmed the boys and they trusted him more than they did almost anyone else at the school. They knew exactly where they stood with him and that he wouldn't let them down, whatever, and it had a good effect on them overall.
The Tuna and Cucumber salad I have made seems just right for Rob. He is used to simple honest food. These days he is mainly in Turkey and here is the place he visits. Back then it was the other way round, but you could just see where his heart was leading him. When he talked about Turkey his whole face would light up and become animated, as if someone had just switched on the light inside.
He strides down the path and pats the dog before he hugs me. Then he sits back in a chair and rocks on its back legs. He makes each place his own home. If he were Indiana Jones you could say that 'wherever he laid his hat, that's his home' (to misquote some old Marvin Gaye song).
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Thursday, 8 May 2014
L is for Life and Living in the Now
Dear Nigel,
Coming downstairs the other day, I found the electricity cable joining my house to John's barn seemed to be down and appeared to have moved.... across the garden, down the drive and round to Craig's next door where a porch is being built. I have looked at this innocent little wire several times and half wondered about it. Now I could hear the sound of stone being cut close by and it was official: I do appear to be supplying the barn opposite with free electricity. As I went up the lane to fetch the bins, John and Terry both looked a bit sheepish. 'I need to see you about that...'one of them mumbled.
I have found that the best form of currency around here is an unofficial form of the LETS bartering system. Half an hour later I was back with the old whirly washing line which I had tossed in the shed when I first moved here. It didn't quite suit the picture in my mind's eye, stuck in the middle of my postage stamp piece of grass at the front of the house. Now that I have acquired another piece of garden and have a vegetable patch underway, I wondered if John could possibly dig up the concrete base and replant it in the new garden (where it would be less obtrusive)? No problem, he'd be round first thing the next morning. You just have to learn to use this system best to your advantage, I find, or the interest accruing has the habit of disappearing.
And, true to his word, the line was up and running the next morning and the dandelions stamped back into the old lawn to increase and multiply in their usual manner.
The best thing about growing vegetables from seed is that it gives you the opportunity to try something completely different that you wouldn't find growing in a pot elsewhere or on the supermarket shelves. I am trialing a new kind of mangetout that I haven't seen around before. It claims to have won 'Vegetable of the Year 2012' - a kind of beauty pageant of the vegetable kingdom. It is a purple mangetout...'British breeding of the first purple Mangetout', it says. It looks stunning on the packet; whether it tastes as good on the plate is another matter.
There is also a blood-veined sorrel, which looks more of a salad leaf than the sort I usually make fish sauces with; and a rhubarb chard following someone else's advertising campaign and promising to be ' probably the best tasting Red Chard' (...in the world). I also come across a Borlotti bean that looks as if it's been splattered in red paint. Where in any supermarket would I find a bean like that? This is where gardeners keep their gold. I just hope the slugs don't get them first.
The recipe I am making tonight for my guest is a Tuna and Cucumber Salad (pg.361). It is just the kind of simple summer platter that my guest will like. He lives mainly in a hot climate, living and working, and popping back here regularly to be home with his partner and children. He is a nomad at heart.
I rarely consider the merits of a tin of tuna when I'm chucking it in the supermarket trolley, but as you specify 'best quality drained canned tuna in olive oil' I search this out. These days they all seem to be in sunflower oil or brine, mainly. I find one, and, on opening I think perhaps there is a real difference, in looks for starters. Maybe if it is to be the main ingredient in a recipe then it is worth getting the best. As a dish it's certainly cheap and nutritious, so perhaps worthy of a little more thought. I am keen to make cheaper dishes at the moment (being on something of an economy drive) but without being prepared to compromise on quality or taste. It's a fine balance sometimes. Jersey new potatoes are in season, and delicious, and will make a tasty addition to this dish.
I am mixing up herbs into my planters this summer - a bit of green amongst the flowers - so that I can 'snip and nip' back to the kitchen when I am in the middle of cooking without having to make a longer journey into the garden. I have an old French Zinc bath which I have filled with beautiful French Lavender and the flat-leaved French Parsley (like Italian), as there's something about the curly English stuff that I just don't really like. Something about the feel of it in my hands or the choke of it on my tongue. Perhaps we're all allowed to have these little quirks and preferences. It's all about free choice after all.
As I prepare the meal for tonight there is a major ballet rehearsal going on in the background. Sophie and Molly are leaping around the living room in frothy tutus that used to be Hannah's to the "rocking sound" of Sibelius's 'The swan of Tuonela'. Suddenly the cook has to abandon her work and go in to break up a fight - it seems that Madam Molly has been making Sophie sit out whilst she demonstrates how to do it properly and there is now a bust-up at Saddlers Wells. After a bit of negotiating I am able to continue with dinner.
I am always a bit suspicious of recipes that want a bit of fancy preparation, and I frown slightly as the instructions are to peel and deseed a cucumber - if I can get away with it I will. However, in this case I am keeping to the letter of the recipe, and, as I discover when we sit down to eat, this is exactly the right thing to do with the cucumber. The texture is right, it isn't watery, and best of all you choose to USE the pulp and seeds of the cucumber in the dressing - I really hate the amount of waste and half-used ingredients in many other recipes.What are you supposed to do with them all, I wonder? Full marks on that one, Nigel.
This is a great recipe for summer, and, best of all it manages to be a tuna salad dish that doesn't remind you with every mouthful that 'you are now eating tuna'. Welcome to an English Summer.
Martha
Coming downstairs the other day, I found the electricity cable joining my house to John's barn seemed to be down and appeared to have moved.... across the garden, down the drive and round to Craig's next door where a porch is being built. I have looked at this innocent little wire several times and half wondered about it. Now I could hear the sound of stone being cut close by and it was official: I do appear to be supplying the barn opposite with free electricity. As I went up the lane to fetch the bins, John and Terry both looked a bit sheepish. 'I need to see you about that...'one of them mumbled.
I have found that the best form of currency around here is an unofficial form of the LETS bartering system. Half an hour later I was back with the old whirly washing line which I had tossed in the shed when I first moved here. It didn't quite suit the picture in my mind's eye, stuck in the middle of my postage stamp piece of grass at the front of the house. Now that I have acquired another piece of garden and have a vegetable patch underway, I wondered if John could possibly dig up the concrete base and replant it in the new garden (where it would be less obtrusive)? No problem, he'd be round first thing the next morning. You just have to learn to use this system best to your advantage, I find, or the interest accruing has the habit of disappearing.
And, true to his word, the line was up and running the next morning and the dandelions stamped back into the old lawn to increase and multiply in their usual manner.
The best thing about growing vegetables from seed is that it gives you the opportunity to try something completely different that you wouldn't find growing in a pot elsewhere or on the supermarket shelves. I am trialing a new kind of mangetout that I haven't seen around before. It claims to have won 'Vegetable of the Year 2012' - a kind of beauty pageant of the vegetable kingdom. It is a purple mangetout...'British breeding of the first purple Mangetout', it says. It looks stunning on the packet; whether it tastes as good on the plate is another matter.
There is also a blood-veined sorrel, which looks more of a salad leaf than the sort I usually make fish sauces with; and a rhubarb chard following someone else's advertising campaign and promising to be ' probably the best tasting Red Chard' (...in the world). I also come across a Borlotti bean that looks as if it's been splattered in red paint. Where in any supermarket would I find a bean like that? This is where gardeners keep their gold. I just hope the slugs don't get them first.
The recipe I am making tonight for my guest is a Tuna and Cucumber Salad (pg.361). It is just the kind of simple summer platter that my guest will like. He lives mainly in a hot climate, living and working, and popping back here regularly to be home with his partner and children. He is a nomad at heart.
I rarely consider the merits of a tin of tuna when I'm chucking it in the supermarket trolley, but as you specify 'best quality drained canned tuna in olive oil' I search this out. These days they all seem to be in sunflower oil or brine, mainly. I find one, and, on opening I think perhaps there is a real difference, in looks for starters. Maybe if it is to be the main ingredient in a recipe then it is worth getting the best. As a dish it's certainly cheap and nutritious, so perhaps worthy of a little more thought. I am keen to make cheaper dishes at the moment (being on something of an economy drive) but without being prepared to compromise on quality or taste. It's a fine balance sometimes. Jersey new potatoes are in season, and delicious, and will make a tasty addition to this dish.
I am mixing up herbs into my planters this summer - a bit of green amongst the flowers - so that I can 'snip and nip' back to the kitchen when I am in the middle of cooking without having to make a longer journey into the garden. I have an old French Zinc bath which I have filled with beautiful French Lavender and the flat-leaved French Parsley (like Italian), as there's something about the curly English stuff that I just don't really like. Something about the feel of it in my hands or the choke of it on my tongue. Perhaps we're all allowed to have these little quirks and preferences. It's all about free choice after all.
As I prepare the meal for tonight there is a major ballet rehearsal going on in the background. Sophie and Molly are leaping around the living room in frothy tutus that used to be Hannah's to the "rocking sound" of Sibelius's 'The swan of Tuonela'. Suddenly the cook has to abandon her work and go in to break up a fight - it seems that Madam Molly has been making Sophie sit out whilst she demonstrates how to do it properly and there is now a bust-up at Saddlers Wells. After a bit of negotiating I am able to continue with dinner.
I am always a bit suspicious of recipes that want a bit of fancy preparation, and I frown slightly as the instructions are to peel and deseed a cucumber - if I can get away with it I will. However, in this case I am keeping to the letter of the recipe, and, as I discover when we sit down to eat, this is exactly the right thing to do with the cucumber. The texture is right, it isn't watery, and best of all you choose to USE the pulp and seeds of the cucumber in the dressing - I really hate the amount of waste and half-used ingredients in many other recipes.What are you supposed to do with them all, I wonder? Full marks on that one, Nigel.
This is a great recipe for summer, and, best of all it manages to be a tuna salad dish that doesn't remind you with every mouthful that 'you are now eating tuna'. Welcome to an English Summer.
Martha
Friday, 2 May 2014
A guest at my table - Mr McCafferty
Mr McCafferty had enjoyed a long and happy career as a Maths teacher, but in his late fifties he had developed heart problems and had had to retire early. His whole life had been working with children and watching the cogs turn in their developing minds as they finally understood what he was trying to teach them. His wife worried that he might become depressed without a focus, he said, but she needn't have worried - Mr McCafferty knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. His childhood dream had always been to work in a sweetshop. And now, with a reduced pension to keep them going and a lump sum from the sale of his Mother's house, he was finally free to fulfil his dreams.
Every month I visited the little market town with a string of four children in tow, a pushchair and bags hanging off everywhere. It was an expedition. The older two boys were ten and eight and full of beans. I was still young enough to keep up with them - having children in your twenties has something to say for it.
One day, on our stroll from the car to the centre of town (having a huge aversion to paying for car parks, such that I would make the children walk miles if necessary...mean mother that I am), we passed a little shop that had once been a barber's as it still had the stripy pole outside. But today the windows were covered in white paper and a sign writer was busy painting candy shades onto a wooden board outside. 'Mr McCafferty's Sweetshop' it read. The children tried to peer in through cracks in the paper, but to no avail. Sweets were only an occasional purchase in our house at that time - more because of lack of time, I think, than because of austerity measures (although there was a hefty dose of those too).
So it was a few weeks later that we made our next visit and this time the shop was up and running and full of customers. This was in an era when little old fashioned sweet shops with lines of jars on shelves were not yet everywhere, and my children had never seen something of the like. There were large coloured lollipops in jars on the counter and striped candy canes in zinc pots echoing the candy striped pole outside. It was a children's paradise and their eyes widened as they took it all in. Luckily, there were several people in the queue in front of us, so there was plenty of time to just stand and stare.
It soon became a regular point of call and the highlight of our visit as far as the children were concerned. James and Christopher had just been given pocket money and they took the whole issue very seriously indeed. Mr McCafferty was happy to mix and match to their heart's content. So the boys took him literally and would point to a jar on the top shelf and ask for two of those. Then another jar from the opposite wall. And Mr McCafferty would patiently take his stepladder and climb to the top and bring down another jar with its black Bakelite lid and shake out two rhubarb and custards or lime and chocolate striped sweets, onto the pan of his old fashioned dial scales.
There was always a smile on his face and his eyes crinkled at the corners as he pushed his glasses back on to his aquiline nose. He moved lightly but in a calm and relaxed manner, as if he had all the time in the world for us. And, indeed he had, he told us. His half pension left him free to enjoy his hobby, and he took great delight in watching the boys totting up the amounts in their heads as they worked out how far their pennies would stretch. He waved away my concerns and embarrassment that he seemed to be working inordinately hard for his £1.20, or whatever.
Over by the window was a table piled high with pink striped boxes and gauzy ribbons and hand blown eggs and rabbits with fluffy tails. At intervals customers would enter, choose and leave, and we would still be there with one child or another with their noses pressed up against the glass, red hair and freckles and shiny eyes, still trying to make the hardest decision of all. Sometimes my patience would start to wane as I looked at my watch and measured out the day, but Mr McCafferty just smiled and smiled. I never saw any evidence of Mrs McCafferty, though I'm sure she existed. She was 'at home doing women's stuff' apparently.
Michael McCafferty had two sons and no Grandchildren that I heard of. One son was in the army and living overseas and the other had apparently 'broken his mother's heart', so I never liked to ask. He would have made a lovely Grandad as he never seemed to get bored with talking to the children and showed a real interest in them. It was a real pleasure to enter his shop, in every way, and people rarely seemed in any hurry and irritated as they waited and queued. Those that were simply dashing in in their lunch break he served quickly and quietly without ever making you feel you had lost his attention. The children loved him. The best Grandpa is always one with a sweet in the bottom of his pocket when you're out on a long walk, as I recall.
So I'm setting the table for dinner as Michael pulls up in his little red car, removing his coat and hat as he enters the house. There are flowers for me and a small striped box of something for the children tomorrow. Out of the usual white shopkeeper's coat which he always wore, he seems smaller and older somehow. He is still smiling broadly and the smiles make his large ears move as he flexes his jaw. His eyes don't miss much, though, behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. He carefully rearranges the cutlery so the knives all point in the same direction as I bring the dish to the table and place it on the rush mat. He has never tried Chinese, he says, and a flicker of alarm passes over my face. Not to worry, he is keen to try new things, have new experiences. The shop has given him a whole new life that he never knew existed, and brought him into contact with all kinds of interesting people. After all, everyone likes a 'little something special' now and again, don't they?
Every month I visited the little market town with a string of four children in tow, a pushchair and bags hanging off everywhere. It was an expedition. The older two boys were ten and eight and full of beans. I was still young enough to keep up with them - having children in your twenties has something to say for it.
One day, on our stroll from the car to the centre of town (having a huge aversion to paying for car parks, such that I would make the children walk miles if necessary...mean mother that I am), we passed a little shop that had once been a barber's as it still had the stripy pole outside. But today the windows were covered in white paper and a sign writer was busy painting candy shades onto a wooden board outside. 'Mr McCafferty's Sweetshop' it read. The children tried to peer in through cracks in the paper, but to no avail. Sweets were only an occasional purchase in our house at that time - more because of lack of time, I think, than because of austerity measures (although there was a hefty dose of those too).
So it was a few weeks later that we made our next visit and this time the shop was up and running and full of customers. This was in an era when little old fashioned sweet shops with lines of jars on shelves were not yet everywhere, and my children had never seen something of the like. There were large coloured lollipops in jars on the counter and striped candy canes in zinc pots echoing the candy striped pole outside. It was a children's paradise and their eyes widened as they took it all in. Luckily, there were several people in the queue in front of us, so there was plenty of time to just stand and stare.
It soon became a regular point of call and the highlight of our visit as far as the children were concerned. James and Christopher had just been given pocket money and they took the whole issue very seriously indeed. Mr McCafferty was happy to mix and match to their heart's content. So the boys took him literally and would point to a jar on the top shelf and ask for two of those. Then another jar from the opposite wall. And Mr McCafferty would patiently take his stepladder and climb to the top and bring down another jar with its black Bakelite lid and shake out two rhubarb and custards or lime and chocolate striped sweets, onto the pan of his old fashioned dial scales.
There was always a smile on his face and his eyes crinkled at the corners as he pushed his glasses back on to his aquiline nose. He moved lightly but in a calm and relaxed manner, as if he had all the time in the world for us. And, indeed he had, he told us. His half pension left him free to enjoy his hobby, and he took great delight in watching the boys totting up the amounts in their heads as they worked out how far their pennies would stretch. He waved away my concerns and embarrassment that he seemed to be working inordinately hard for his £1.20, or whatever.
Over by the window was a table piled high with pink striped boxes and gauzy ribbons and hand blown eggs and rabbits with fluffy tails. At intervals customers would enter, choose and leave, and we would still be there with one child or another with their noses pressed up against the glass, red hair and freckles and shiny eyes, still trying to make the hardest decision of all. Sometimes my patience would start to wane as I looked at my watch and measured out the day, but Mr McCafferty just smiled and smiled. I never saw any evidence of Mrs McCafferty, though I'm sure she existed. She was 'at home doing women's stuff' apparently.
Michael McCafferty had two sons and no Grandchildren that I heard of. One son was in the army and living overseas and the other had apparently 'broken his mother's heart', so I never liked to ask. He would have made a lovely Grandad as he never seemed to get bored with talking to the children and showed a real interest in them. It was a real pleasure to enter his shop, in every way, and people rarely seemed in any hurry and irritated as they waited and queued. Those that were simply dashing in in their lunch break he served quickly and quietly without ever making you feel you had lost his attention. The children loved him. The best Grandpa is always one with a sweet in the bottom of his pocket when you're out on a long walk, as I recall.
So I'm setting the table for dinner as Michael pulls up in his little red car, removing his coat and hat as he enters the house. There are flowers for me and a small striped box of something for the children tomorrow. Out of the usual white shopkeeper's coat which he always wore, he seems smaller and older somehow. He is still smiling broadly and the smiles make his large ears move as he flexes his jaw. His eyes don't miss much, though, behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. He carefully rearranges the cutlery so the knives all point in the same direction as I bring the dish to the table and place it on the rush mat. He has never tried Chinese, he says, and a flicker of alarm passes over my face. Not to worry, he is keen to try new things, have new experiences. The shop has given him a whole new life that he never knew existed, and brought him into contact with all kinds of interesting people. After all, everyone likes a 'little something special' now and again, don't they?
Thursday, 24 April 2014
K is for Kindness and the Kingmaker scenario
Dear Nigel,
In games of strategy the Kingmaker scenario is often unavoidable. Such behaviour is regarded as unsportsmanlike but not against the rules. The Kingmaker scenario is where a player who is unable to win the game himself has the ability to determine which of the other players is the overall winner.
Whether this is Party politics, or Family politics involving the contentious issue of dividing up an unequal quantity of Easter eggs to absent (but not unaware) members of the family (- when did the Easter bunny start to have these problems?) - life was surely never meant to be this difficult. It's enough to make you want to melt the whole lot down and make a single bar with easily-divided chunks.
Easter egg hunts are an annual favourite in our house and a plate of properly-made hot cross buns dripping in unholy amounts of butter. The holiday weather mellows to a golden sunset here at mum's and we sit on a sun-bleached driftwood log looking out over a calm and peaceful sea full of promise for the summer to come. Easter is the start of it all, somehow, with winter firmly put to bed and seeds to sow in ready anticipation of a gradually warming soil back at home.
The dish I am making for my guest this week is a simple Chinese-inspired dish of chicken, broccoli and cashew nuts. I want to see how fast and easy good things to eat can really be; and this is definitely one of those- a dish you can rustle up in minutes, looks good, tastes fab (thank you Nigel) and would slot very neatly into a weekly routine of hurried affairs when the call to eat is louder than the call to cook....and you really can get it on the table before you have time to stuff that Mars Bar into your mouth. I don't believe that I'm the only cook who can't cook a lovely meal on an empty stomach. There's a fine line between building up an appetite and ritual torture, I think. (Stir-fried Chicken with Cashews and Broccoli. pg 343.) The thin-stemmed broccoli has just the right amount of crunch to balance the meal. I'm so used to thoughtlessly reaching for those football shaped bouquets that sometimes I fail to consider the alternate possibilities (purple-sprouting broccoli aside, for which I have a particular soft spot and take great pleasure in watching grow).
Having recently subjected a friend to the hottest dish available in Soho (of the culinary variety I might add), I want to reassure them that there is a lot less heat in most Chinese dishes:
We are sitting next to a lovely girl from Denmark whose family are from Northern China (whose food this particular restaurant specialises in) who is happily guiding us through the best dishes on the menu as she deftly wraps pig's intestines round her chopsticks out of a cloudy soup and eats. Although it seems a great idea to take the advice of someone who actually knows what they're talking about when it comes to food, sometimes the cultural differences can almost prove too great a divide. I survive the meal intact, my companion however spends the next day suffering.
I have a new neighbour next door at last. Terry the game keeper has moved on to another cottage a couple of miles away. My new neighbour is a different kettle of fish. He drives a sports car and tells me he is hugely security-conscious and puts locks on his shed and lighting up outside. I mourn for the truly dark nights we used to have when the nights were dark and the stars intensely bright. I have taken a leaf out of his book and invested in a padlock for the shed. But the dog will warn me of any passing cats feet and I can't tell the difference between feeling safe inside and feeling imprisoned. We chat and make plans to spend time over a bottle of wine one evening. I make some comment about the practicality of his lovely little sports car, given the 18 inches of snow sunk on the lane for weeks on end last year (this passing winter being an unusual case). He has already seen the light and is looking about for something a bit higher up off the ground. In his townie way he is settling in and soon, I can tell, the place will start to weave its magic around him too. And maybe he, also, will learn to be a little less frightened of the dark.
He brings two cats with him - big fat townie cats with attitude. They stare me down as I come back from our walk on the meadows with Poppy. One is a dusty grey with lots of hair, who the kids call 'Smokie'. He is the Godfather, I think; full of disdain and ruthless power. The other, they call 'Bandito' on account of his Zorro-like mask. This cat looks truly evil. I can see that there will be a tussle for power and territory; perhaps pistols at dawn or claws at three o'clock on a damp and moonlit night. They are moving in and marking their territory, flexing their muscles and preparing for a stand-off. Clint Eastwood waits in the shadows.
Martha
In games of strategy the Kingmaker scenario is often unavoidable. Such behaviour is regarded as unsportsmanlike but not against the rules. The Kingmaker scenario is where a player who is unable to win the game himself has the ability to determine which of the other players is the overall winner.
Whether this is Party politics, or Family politics involving the contentious issue of dividing up an unequal quantity of Easter eggs to absent (but not unaware) members of the family (- when did the Easter bunny start to have these problems?) - life was surely never meant to be this difficult. It's enough to make you want to melt the whole lot down and make a single bar with easily-divided chunks.
Easter egg hunts are an annual favourite in our house and a plate of properly-made hot cross buns dripping in unholy amounts of butter. The holiday weather mellows to a golden sunset here at mum's and we sit on a sun-bleached driftwood log looking out over a calm and peaceful sea full of promise for the summer to come. Easter is the start of it all, somehow, with winter firmly put to bed and seeds to sow in ready anticipation of a gradually warming soil back at home.
The dish I am making for my guest this week is a simple Chinese-inspired dish of chicken, broccoli and cashew nuts. I want to see how fast and easy good things to eat can really be; and this is definitely one of those- a dish you can rustle up in minutes, looks good, tastes fab (thank you Nigel) and would slot very neatly into a weekly routine of hurried affairs when the call to eat is louder than the call to cook....and you really can get it on the table before you have time to stuff that Mars Bar into your mouth. I don't believe that I'm the only cook who can't cook a lovely meal on an empty stomach. There's a fine line between building up an appetite and ritual torture, I think. (Stir-fried Chicken with Cashews and Broccoli. pg 343.) The thin-stemmed broccoli has just the right amount of crunch to balance the meal. I'm so used to thoughtlessly reaching for those football shaped bouquets that sometimes I fail to consider the alternate possibilities (purple-sprouting broccoli aside, for which I have a particular soft spot and take great pleasure in watching grow).
Having recently subjected a friend to the hottest dish available in Soho (of the culinary variety I might add), I want to reassure them that there is a lot less heat in most Chinese dishes:
We are sitting next to a lovely girl from Denmark whose family are from Northern China (whose food this particular restaurant specialises in) who is happily guiding us through the best dishes on the menu as she deftly wraps pig's intestines round her chopsticks out of a cloudy soup and eats. Although it seems a great idea to take the advice of someone who actually knows what they're talking about when it comes to food, sometimes the cultural differences can almost prove too great a divide. I survive the meal intact, my companion however spends the next day suffering.
I have a new neighbour next door at last. Terry the game keeper has moved on to another cottage a couple of miles away. My new neighbour is a different kettle of fish. He drives a sports car and tells me he is hugely security-conscious and puts locks on his shed and lighting up outside. I mourn for the truly dark nights we used to have when the nights were dark and the stars intensely bright. I have taken a leaf out of his book and invested in a padlock for the shed. But the dog will warn me of any passing cats feet and I can't tell the difference between feeling safe inside and feeling imprisoned. We chat and make plans to spend time over a bottle of wine one evening. I make some comment about the practicality of his lovely little sports car, given the 18 inches of snow sunk on the lane for weeks on end last year (this passing winter being an unusual case). He has already seen the light and is looking about for something a bit higher up off the ground. In his townie way he is settling in and soon, I can tell, the place will start to weave its magic around him too. And maybe he, also, will learn to be a little less frightened of the dark.
He brings two cats with him - big fat townie cats with attitude. They stare me down as I come back from our walk on the meadows with Poppy. One is a dusty grey with lots of hair, who the kids call 'Smokie'. He is the Godfather, I think; full of disdain and ruthless power. The other, they call 'Bandito' on account of his Zorro-like mask. This cat looks truly evil. I can see that there will be a tussle for power and territory; perhaps pistols at dawn or claws at three o'clock on a damp and moonlit night. They are moving in and marking their territory, flexing their muscles and preparing for a stand-off. Clint Eastwood waits in the shadows.
Martha
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
A guest at my table - John Daniel
I was minding the time in a tiny second hand bookshop, shoved somewhere up a narrow alleyway in a town I no longer remember. Crouching down amongst the fug of slightly damp, brown paper hedges, I came across a book called 'Cottesbrooke: An English Kitchen Garden' by Susan Campbell. It was 1989 and this book only published a couple of years earlier seemed to have been read and discarded rapidly. But as I started to read this diary of one of the last surviving working Kitchen Gardens in Northamptonshire, documented for the year 1984-85, I found myself standing beyond the door of 'The Secret Garden', looking in on a world that no one knew existed anymore; and I was totally and utterly enchanted. This for me was a formative moment; the moment a passion was ignited whose flame has stayed pure to this day.
I started to soak up everything I could about old Kitchen Gardens, tracing their outline at National Trust Houses where often only a couple of espalier trees remained against a sun drenched wall. I followed architectural books and plans of old hot houses, visited the glasshouses at Kew, traced plant histories in physic gardens and old herbals. And all the while, like a ball of wool being wound, this passion grew and grew.
So when, finally, in 1991, I found myself with an outline for a kitchen garden, hemmed in by the walls of an old farmyard at our new home, I knew exactly what I wanted to create. At just that moment I chanced upon a scruffy little note on the village noticeboard advertising box hedging for sale by the foot. In my mind there was a perfect square parterre with clipped box hedges and filled with herbs and vegetables; with gravel paths to ward off slugs and spanned at the edges with an arch of climbing roses and clematis.
Seeing that the number was just down the road I took a chance and hammered on the old cottage door. A tall man with iron grey hair and a heavy moustache came to the door, still dressed in a pair of enormous wellies. He was gruff but friendly, more so when he realised I'd come about the hedging. He was turning over the whole garden to vegetables, he said, and the old hedging was in the way. We went to look at it and I took a double take. Although it was a little ragged and sitting amongst a good crop of wild grass, the shape was undeniably the same shape in my mind's eye. How many feet did I need? he asked. All of it, I replied, all exactly as it was. Over the next weekend I moved the entire parterre, chunk by chunk, in a wheelbarrow up the road to our cottage farmhouse at the top. The roots of box are shallow and compact and it was like fitting a jigsaw back into place, rotating the corners to just the right angle, as if it had been grown exactly for the space in which it was intended.
John Daniel came up to check I was watering it properly and that all the roots were properly covered and anchored in. Then he came up again with seedlings; vegetables he had a surplus of. Over the next few months all sorts of gifts started arriving; each one a lovingly tended little specimen cocooned within an old yoghurt pot or a piece of empty toilet roll. I had often noted the ingenuity of allotment holders in creating plant holders and supports out of recycled 'rubbish', but John Daniel had this down to a fine art. Nothing was ever wasted in his house. Cloches were made out of orange squash bottles and homemade beer to line the slug defence system. Cd's whirred in the sunshine deterring birds from his precious seedlings and the copper stripped from old wiring to wind around the pots - a second line of defence against the inebriated slugs.
John Daniel lived on his own with only his old sheepdog Nell for company. His wife had died a few years earlier and with her the desire to remain kempt for the rest of humanity's sake. He was reverting back to nature along with the plants that he tended. His plan was to buy as little as possible from an actual shop, preferring to scavenge from the multitude of skips left outside more affluent homes and to grow everything that he ate. I worried that his diet might be a little boring at times, but I needn't have worried. He brought a pan of nettle soup made from the tips of young nettles and a little lemon thyme. It was wonderful. Never did I have the chance to thank him in a way that would have been acceptable. But in exchange, he would look around and see what was going to waste. If the builders we had in had left some plastic pipes then he would go off with those to construct a tower to grow courgettes in or a tumbler for a cascade of tiny tomatoes that grew plump and red in the Cornish sunshine.
In the Summertime, I took him into the cool of the cowshed wall where an old lean-to greenhouse had been constructed. 'This', I told him emphatically, 'was the sole reason we had bought this particular house'. And then I showed him inside my secret palace. The 'Greenhouse', as such was about 30 feet long and had been constructed around a very old grapevine. The previous owner had told me that the grapevine was at least 80 years old. The roots were outside under the shade of a wonderfully-shaped willow tree where I parked the baby's pram, and came in through the wall and along the roof the entire length of the house. There was a gutter which dripped water onto the roots, which they loved, and the 'stem' of the vine was the diameter of a man's arm. In summer we were harvesting six large bunches of red grapes a day just to keep from going mouldy. The neighbours were kept in presents and my then-husband had me treading grapes in the bathtub to turn into wine. (Somehow, though, it wasn't an occupation he was prepared to do himself).
I made Dolmades out of the young vine leaves and took them over to John Daniel's. We sat on old striped deckchairs next to the blue plastic potato barrel to eat; and I suddenly realised that I'd made something very fine indeed. There was an ease to this kind of living, a giving and receiving that was both natural and uncomplicated. So often there is no gift without a kind of price tag fixed at some imaginary point in the future that will be called in. With John Daniel there was none of this. The only money that ever changed hands was in square footage over a length of box hedging. The friendship built lives on to this day, as does the passion for kitchen gardening which he help foster.
I am smiling broadly as he draws up outside my new home. He carries a bottle with a hand-written label on it. Will it be more of his mind-blowingly strong parsnip wine I wonder? He leaves his worn espadrilles at the door and fusses the dog as she greets a friend she has yet to meet. There are treats in his trouser pockets and he has won her over as he did us all those many years ago. There is a genuine abundance about him, a generosity that has no truck with material possessions. I feel that if I asked for his coat he would give it to me, willingly, and be glad to have been of service. It is hard to give back to someone like that who doesn't ask for it, and insulting to be more obvious. A meal is good. He will accept my hospitality gladly, and the chicken pie that I have made with its liquor interior of pale ale is heartily received. He has made something similar himself, he declares, checking the label on the bottle. Organic, naturally. I never doubted it for one moment.
I started to soak up everything I could about old Kitchen Gardens, tracing their outline at National Trust Houses where often only a couple of espalier trees remained against a sun drenched wall. I followed architectural books and plans of old hot houses, visited the glasshouses at Kew, traced plant histories in physic gardens and old herbals. And all the while, like a ball of wool being wound, this passion grew and grew.
So when, finally, in 1991, I found myself with an outline for a kitchen garden, hemmed in by the walls of an old farmyard at our new home, I knew exactly what I wanted to create. At just that moment I chanced upon a scruffy little note on the village noticeboard advertising box hedging for sale by the foot. In my mind there was a perfect square parterre with clipped box hedges and filled with herbs and vegetables; with gravel paths to ward off slugs and spanned at the edges with an arch of climbing roses and clematis.
Seeing that the number was just down the road I took a chance and hammered on the old cottage door. A tall man with iron grey hair and a heavy moustache came to the door, still dressed in a pair of enormous wellies. He was gruff but friendly, more so when he realised I'd come about the hedging. He was turning over the whole garden to vegetables, he said, and the old hedging was in the way. We went to look at it and I took a double take. Although it was a little ragged and sitting amongst a good crop of wild grass, the shape was undeniably the same shape in my mind's eye. How many feet did I need? he asked. All of it, I replied, all exactly as it was. Over the next weekend I moved the entire parterre, chunk by chunk, in a wheelbarrow up the road to our cottage farmhouse at the top. The roots of box are shallow and compact and it was like fitting a jigsaw back into place, rotating the corners to just the right angle, as if it had been grown exactly for the space in which it was intended.
John Daniel came up to check I was watering it properly and that all the roots were properly covered and anchored in. Then he came up again with seedlings; vegetables he had a surplus of. Over the next few months all sorts of gifts started arriving; each one a lovingly tended little specimen cocooned within an old yoghurt pot or a piece of empty toilet roll. I had often noted the ingenuity of allotment holders in creating plant holders and supports out of recycled 'rubbish', but John Daniel had this down to a fine art. Nothing was ever wasted in his house. Cloches were made out of orange squash bottles and homemade beer to line the slug defence system. Cd's whirred in the sunshine deterring birds from his precious seedlings and the copper stripped from old wiring to wind around the pots - a second line of defence against the inebriated slugs.
John Daniel lived on his own with only his old sheepdog Nell for company. His wife had died a few years earlier and with her the desire to remain kempt for the rest of humanity's sake. He was reverting back to nature along with the plants that he tended. His plan was to buy as little as possible from an actual shop, preferring to scavenge from the multitude of skips left outside more affluent homes and to grow everything that he ate. I worried that his diet might be a little boring at times, but I needn't have worried. He brought a pan of nettle soup made from the tips of young nettles and a little lemon thyme. It was wonderful. Never did I have the chance to thank him in a way that would have been acceptable. But in exchange, he would look around and see what was going to waste. If the builders we had in had left some plastic pipes then he would go off with those to construct a tower to grow courgettes in or a tumbler for a cascade of tiny tomatoes that grew plump and red in the Cornish sunshine.
In the Summertime, I took him into the cool of the cowshed wall where an old lean-to greenhouse had been constructed. 'This', I told him emphatically, 'was the sole reason we had bought this particular house'. And then I showed him inside my secret palace. The 'Greenhouse', as such was about 30 feet long and had been constructed around a very old grapevine. The previous owner had told me that the grapevine was at least 80 years old. The roots were outside under the shade of a wonderfully-shaped willow tree where I parked the baby's pram, and came in through the wall and along the roof the entire length of the house. There was a gutter which dripped water onto the roots, which they loved, and the 'stem' of the vine was the diameter of a man's arm. In summer we were harvesting six large bunches of red grapes a day just to keep from going mouldy. The neighbours were kept in presents and my then-husband had me treading grapes in the bathtub to turn into wine. (Somehow, though, it wasn't an occupation he was prepared to do himself).
I made Dolmades out of the young vine leaves and took them over to John Daniel's. We sat on old striped deckchairs next to the blue plastic potato barrel to eat; and I suddenly realised that I'd made something very fine indeed. There was an ease to this kind of living, a giving and receiving that was both natural and uncomplicated. So often there is no gift without a kind of price tag fixed at some imaginary point in the future that will be called in. With John Daniel there was none of this. The only money that ever changed hands was in square footage over a length of box hedging. The friendship built lives on to this day, as does the passion for kitchen gardening which he help foster.
I am smiling broadly as he draws up outside my new home. He carries a bottle with a hand-written label on it. Will it be more of his mind-blowingly strong parsnip wine I wonder? He leaves his worn espadrilles at the door and fusses the dog as she greets a friend she has yet to meet. There are treats in his trouser pockets and he has won her over as he did us all those many years ago. There is a genuine abundance about him, a generosity that has no truck with material possessions. I feel that if I asked for his coat he would give it to me, willingly, and be glad to have been of service. It is hard to give back to someone like that who doesn't ask for it, and insulting to be more obvious. A meal is good. He will accept my hospitality gladly, and the chicken pie that I have made with its liquor interior of pale ale is heartily received. He has made something similar himself, he declares, checking the label on the bottle. Organic, naturally. I never doubted it for one moment.
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
J is for Jammy
Dear Nigel,
I am making a chicken pie. It is an exceedingly good chicken pie; and as I stir the chopped tarragon leaves into the rich gravy made with organic pale ale and fresh chicken stock, Molly comes up to me and informs me that she had one the other night and nearly ate half the pie. I inform her tartly that this one is homemade and she is therefore a very lucky girl, and not out of a packet from some budget supermarket. The recipe is 'Quick Chicken Pot Pie' (page329). Good for a damp, dismal day when 'sometimes, you just want pie.'
The recipe calls for White beer, and here you have me floored. Enlisting the help of half the available shop assistants this morning, we decide that white beer is most likely to be pale ale but no one had heard it called as such. That so many young men should be happy to be called over to discuss the subject of beer at nine o'clock on a Friday morning shows a certain dedication to their calling.
Mothers Day on Sunday saw five out of seven of my little chicklings back home for the day. An earlier email from my daughter when I'm trying to firm up arrangements happily says, 'we'll do whatever you want - it is your day'. However, as we sit eating lunch and I drop into the conversation that I'd like to go to Biddulph Grange, an almighty groan goes up from my older ones. 'Not another National Trust Garden'. David finds this highly amusing. I'm thinking - what did that nice little email from Hannah say? Shouldn't we be doing something that I want to do on MY Day? Of course we go. Of course they moan. The little ones enjoy the Dinosaur bones garden (the Stumpery), the Chinese pagoda and the Tea house, feeding the Carp and finding the imaginary monsters that lurk in all the caves and tunnels. They, at least, are easily amused.
I hear from my two older sons, James and Christopher, and I ring my Mum. I think about you, and your Mum, and I feel grateful for what I have. Trying to write the most difficult of letters ever recently, to someone, I come up with only one thought that seems to resonate in me: The people that I have loved best and who are no longer with me live on most in the values that they imparted. I look at my children and see not just a look or mannerism or colour of eye, but the values and principles that have passed on and assimilated effortlessly in them. Not things that I have taught them, cajoled or badgered them into doing, but a way of living that has come through the years through the people who have taught me how to live well. And which now lives on in them.
The fields are full of twin lambs everywhere at present, and notes on farm gates advertising cade lambs for sale (ie orphan lambs raised on a bottle). The children would like to take one home as a pet but I think the paperwork would be a little excessive these days, even for just one lamb. They are, however, the best indication that Spring is here and Summer, hopefully, not too far behind. Tractors are wearing over-large tyres this season, as the ground is so wet, and young lads are out courting in Green Massey Fergusons driving erratically with their girlfriends in tandem. At least I was only following one lad and his girlfriend this morning as he wove across the road; I wouldn't have liked to have been the car coming the other way who was eyeing his shiny new paintwork with horror.
Last weekend I was hedge trimming at a friend's farm, taking out thick stems with a pair of loppers (a necessary procedure just before the surge of Spring makes it an impossible job). There in the heart of the hedge I uncovered the most perfectly formed little nest with three bluish-green eggs cossetted inside; looking for all the world like the most twee and artificial chocolate confection. Carefully, I moved it and hid it deeper in the hedge and moved off to allow the flustering mother blackbird to re-establish herself. It is one of the hazards of gardening at this time of year, unfortunately.
The children play a treasure hunt game by my friend's lake and it is a bit like running in a playground full of toddlers as they try and avoid the mass piggyback races of all the nearby toad population. Lawns have been wrecked by an unchecked assault by the local mole SAS team, but the soil makes great covering for the herbs and salad beds. Gardening, which has been left for so long to manage itself over the winter months has suddenly become an imperative as the days get longer and the temperature starts to rise a little.
The Rhubarb is the first crop to be ready for harvesting. It is a beautiful and vibrant pink with long-enough stems to warrant picking. I am also testing some later-cropping variety this year, but this more established mound will soon be pulled and made into crumble. My family like it with Raspberries or alternatively a little stem ginger and brown sugar. It is heartening to make something good that grows so effortlessly under its blanket of well-rotted manure.
Martha
I am making a chicken pie. It is an exceedingly good chicken pie; and as I stir the chopped tarragon leaves into the rich gravy made with organic pale ale and fresh chicken stock, Molly comes up to me and informs me that she had one the other night and nearly ate half the pie. I inform her tartly that this one is homemade and she is therefore a very lucky girl, and not out of a packet from some budget supermarket. The recipe is 'Quick Chicken Pot Pie' (page329). Good for a damp, dismal day when 'sometimes, you just want pie.'
The recipe calls for White beer, and here you have me floored. Enlisting the help of half the available shop assistants this morning, we decide that white beer is most likely to be pale ale but no one had heard it called as such. That so many young men should be happy to be called over to discuss the subject of beer at nine o'clock on a Friday morning shows a certain dedication to their calling.
Mothers Day on Sunday saw five out of seven of my little chicklings back home for the day. An earlier email from my daughter when I'm trying to firm up arrangements happily says, 'we'll do whatever you want - it is your day'. However, as we sit eating lunch and I drop into the conversation that I'd like to go to Biddulph Grange, an almighty groan goes up from my older ones. 'Not another National Trust Garden'. David finds this highly amusing. I'm thinking - what did that nice little email from Hannah say? Shouldn't we be doing something that I want to do on MY Day? Of course we go. Of course they moan. The little ones enjoy the Dinosaur bones garden (the Stumpery), the Chinese pagoda and the Tea house, feeding the Carp and finding the imaginary monsters that lurk in all the caves and tunnels. They, at least, are easily amused.
I hear from my two older sons, James and Christopher, and I ring my Mum. I think about you, and your Mum, and I feel grateful for what I have. Trying to write the most difficult of letters ever recently, to someone, I come up with only one thought that seems to resonate in me: The people that I have loved best and who are no longer with me live on most in the values that they imparted. I look at my children and see not just a look or mannerism or colour of eye, but the values and principles that have passed on and assimilated effortlessly in them. Not things that I have taught them, cajoled or badgered them into doing, but a way of living that has come through the years through the people who have taught me how to live well. And which now lives on in them.
The fields are full of twin lambs everywhere at present, and notes on farm gates advertising cade lambs for sale (ie orphan lambs raised on a bottle). The children would like to take one home as a pet but I think the paperwork would be a little excessive these days, even for just one lamb. They are, however, the best indication that Spring is here and Summer, hopefully, not too far behind. Tractors are wearing over-large tyres this season, as the ground is so wet, and young lads are out courting in Green Massey Fergusons driving erratically with their girlfriends in tandem. At least I was only following one lad and his girlfriend this morning as he wove across the road; I wouldn't have liked to have been the car coming the other way who was eyeing his shiny new paintwork with horror.
Last weekend I was hedge trimming at a friend's farm, taking out thick stems with a pair of loppers (a necessary procedure just before the surge of Spring makes it an impossible job). There in the heart of the hedge I uncovered the most perfectly formed little nest with three bluish-green eggs cossetted inside; looking for all the world like the most twee and artificial chocolate confection. Carefully, I moved it and hid it deeper in the hedge and moved off to allow the flustering mother blackbird to re-establish herself. It is one of the hazards of gardening at this time of year, unfortunately.
The children play a treasure hunt game by my friend's lake and it is a bit like running in a playground full of toddlers as they try and avoid the mass piggyback races of all the nearby toad population. Lawns have been wrecked by an unchecked assault by the local mole SAS team, but the soil makes great covering for the herbs and salad beds. Gardening, which has been left for so long to manage itself over the winter months has suddenly become an imperative as the days get longer and the temperature starts to rise a little.
The Rhubarb is the first crop to be ready for harvesting. It is a beautiful and vibrant pink with long-enough stems to warrant picking. I am also testing some later-cropping variety this year, but this more established mound will soon be pulled and made into crumble. My family like it with Raspberries or alternatively a little stem ginger and brown sugar. It is heartening to make something good that grows so effortlessly under its blanket of well-rotted manure.
Martha
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
A guest at my table - Jo
Entering into Jo's house for the first time was like encountering a different world: It was a different world, different to the life I'd hitherto known. As we sat on enormous beanbags on the floor of the spacious and empty room gazing at the expanse of polished parquet and sipping herbal tea, I felt more at home in this place than I had done back at my parents. John and Jo lived ethically and politically, both in his job in overseas development, and hers helping women in childbirth in Bolivia and now here at home in middle class suburbville somewhere off the M4.
The NCT class was populated with highly educated professional people all in their sensible mid to late thirties, and early forties. And a couple of kids, really. Us. I was 20 years old, barely out of college, and in that seemingly unlikely state of being straight out of school and able to buy our first house. Back in the early '80s when a two bedroom terraced house in East Reading could be had for £19,000, it was strangely possible.
Jo was bright-eyed and dark with tight curly hair and an eternally youthful stance and outlook on life. Coming in as the second wife to a man who already had three children and a view on population, meant that her longing for children only allowed her the one. The longing was always there and she used this to help drive her desire to help others create families of their own. Even though she'd taught as a teacher for many years she'd never been invited to attend a birth - that most personal and private of times. Until now. I think my main motivating desire for Jo's support was the fact that my then husband was prone to passing out at the sight of blood, and I was more worried about what would happen to him than what would happen to me. So Jo was enlisted to cart him off at the ninth hour should it be necessary.
The birth was fairly 'textbook', as they say. Age had a huge part to play in that way, I think. Our society has unbalanced the natural order of things as far as mother nature is concerned, and it shows in the steep rise in intervention in childbirth in this country. Jo was there. Miraculously, Richard was still standing too. And there was this little bundle of joy that looked more like ET than the photographs I'd seen in baby books.
Jo returned the next day with a framed piece of calligraphy she'd done of a piece out of Kahlil Gibran's poem 'The Prophet'. It said -
'Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.'
It carries on in this vein. Many of you may know it well. But it gave me - a young, naive new mother - a different view on children to the dolls pram and pretty dresses one so many little girls are brought up on. Jo helped me to look on life and its blessings in a different way. Over the years I have tried to preserve the differences between my children, guarding the personalities that are entirely their own and nothing to do with the way I have brought them up or the way I might wish them to be. One is sporty, another quiet, one flamboyant, another hot and fiery. All quite different.
Jo indulged her desire for daughters in running the local Brownie pack and for the bizarre and spectacular in her beautiful millinery creations (a passion for which carried on through the years). We wrote, usually at Christmas, keeping in touch as my unethical family grew and life wove this way and that across the country, putting down roots, ripping them up and planting fresh ones elsewhere. Her family spread out world-wide in their high-flying careers and she carried on in the same house, imparting the same sound knowledge where it was needed.
She sits at the table now, swinging her legs up to sit cross-legged on the seat in her bare feet and smiling like a young girl. The dish is just right, I think: vegetarian, inexpensive, spicy and hot and of elsewhere. She is notably pleased.
The NCT class was populated with highly educated professional people all in their sensible mid to late thirties, and early forties. And a couple of kids, really. Us. I was 20 years old, barely out of college, and in that seemingly unlikely state of being straight out of school and able to buy our first house. Back in the early '80s when a two bedroom terraced house in East Reading could be had for £19,000, it was strangely possible.
Jo was bright-eyed and dark with tight curly hair and an eternally youthful stance and outlook on life. Coming in as the second wife to a man who already had three children and a view on population, meant that her longing for children only allowed her the one. The longing was always there and she used this to help drive her desire to help others create families of their own. Even though she'd taught as a teacher for many years she'd never been invited to attend a birth - that most personal and private of times. Until now. I think my main motivating desire for Jo's support was the fact that my then husband was prone to passing out at the sight of blood, and I was more worried about what would happen to him than what would happen to me. So Jo was enlisted to cart him off at the ninth hour should it be necessary.
The birth was fairly 'textbook', as they say. Age had a huge part to play in that way, I think. Our society has unbalanced the natural order of things as far as mother nature is concerned, and it shows in the steep rise in intervention in childbirth in this country. Jo was there. Miraculously, Richard was still standing too. And there was this little bundle of joy that looked more like ET than the photographs I'd seen in baby books.
Jo returned the next day with a framed piece of calligraphy she'd done of a piece out of Kahlil Gibran's poem 'The Prophet'. It said -
'Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.'
It carries on in this vein. Many of you may know it well. But it gave me - a young, naive new mother - a different view on children to the dolls pram and pretty dresses one so many little girls are brought up on. Jo helped me to look on life and its blessings in a different way. Over the years I have tried to preserve the differences between my children, guarding the personalities that are entirely their own and nothing to do with the way I have brought them up or the way I might wish them to be. One is sporty, another quiet, one flamboyant, another hot and fiery. All quite different.
Jo indulged her desire for daughters in running the local Brownie pack and for the bizarre and spectacular in her beautiful millinery creations (a passion for which carried on through the years). We wrote, usually at Christmas, keeping in touch as my unethical family grew and life wove this way and that across the country, putting down roots, ripping them up and planting fresh ones elsewhere. Her family spread out world-wide in their high-flying careers and she carried on in the same house, imparting the same sound knowledge where it was needed.
She sits at the table now, swinging her legs up to sit cross-legged on the seat in her bare feet and smiling like a young girl. The dish is just right, I think: vegetarian, inexpensive, spicy and hot and of elsewhere. She is notably pleased.
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