A Week in the Big Apple

I am so bad at this. Months go by and I can't begin to even think of sitting still for long enough to do anything but answer the necessary emails , glance anxiously at my desk and it's expanding piles of urgent to do's and hastily beat a retreat. I use every excuse in the book to get out of the house and on the road to somewhere. Escapism.....I am very good at it.

Since my last blog I have been in NYC where I wilted within overheated air conditioned apartments for an entire week before I escaped to The Hampton's, flung open the windows and slept like a baby while the wind gavorted around my room, snatching the curtains and clearing the cill.

My daughter thinks there is something wrong with me. I was still asleep when she came to my room in the morning, opening the door and nearly getting sucked into a vacuum that propelled her across the hall. "How can you sleep like this. It's freezing in here?"
She has a point. In NYC she is used to an hermetically sealed life, kept at a moderate 25 degrees. Nothing penetrates her world, except a daily influx of couriers, 2 PAs, 1 make-up artist, 1 hairdresser, 1 nanny, 1 housekeeper, 3 stylists from a fashion house, 1 personal trainer, 1 dog walker and the yoga teacher! Peaceful!
The first night in NY I may have opened the window a tiny crack, taken two deep breaths and closed it very quickly for fear of her noticing. The next morning she had three mosquito bites on her arm!
Looking accusingly at Grandma she asked the ceiling,  " How on earth did a mosquito manage to get into the apartment last night?"......luckily my small grandson diffused the situation by replying....."Yes Mommy. I wonder how it managed to press the elevator button!"
So, I think in sheer frustration come friday afternoon she packed Grandma, the two boys and Bob the yorkie into the car and drove us the three hours to Long Island.
I overheated in the car too. I was fine for a short while, but then I had to do things....  The boys were plugged into Madagascar 2 when something went wrong with the signal on one of the screens. We were unable to pull off the highway so it was up to me to heave my great bulk over into the back seats, manoeuvre my legs through the gap in the front seats and reach right to the rear of the vehicle in order to attempt to find the celery and carrot sticks Mommy had so thoughtfully remembered for such occasions.
Let me say in this instance celery and carrot sticks were as useful as a cattle prod and, an entire packet of M and Ms each would have done a better job. However here I was stuck to the roof of the car, overheated and trying in desperation to reverse back into the passenger seat. My daughter, between having hysterics over my contortions, while trying to remain on the highway and appease two little angry boys, was still trying to figure out what went wrong with the DVD. Eventually I landed  in a distorted heap back in my seat just at the moment when the Sat Nav advised us for the third time to take an immediate right onto Highway 54.  We missed it  completely and now she was mad as a meat axe, the boys were still mad, and I was very very HOT! Bob the yorkie finally came to rest on my lap after an episode of violent activity in which he catapulted from one side of the car to the other barking hysterically and, we finally discovered, it was he who intermittently turned off and on the DVD controls  as he passed between seats. Situation solved. DVD working again, boys happy, Mommy pissed off that she missed the turning and the journey would take an extra hour, Grandma cooling down having eaten the celery sticks, Bob harnessed to my lap......and somehow an unspoken but overwhelming feeling that it might have been all my fault written on daughters face.

So later as I lay comfortably in my windswept bedroom thinking of the swimming lesson I would attend with the boys that morning, I wondered how we Mothers of daughters always seem to get it so very wrong. Even though I brought up two children and managed to get them to an age where they were able to go it alone. Managed to prevent them being electrocuted, drowned, run over, burnt, and falling from great heights, I still don't seem to think quick enough for my adult daughter. I evidently have lost my skill at feeding infants..."You don't cut it that way Mum".....Pouring an orange juice..."They don't have orange juice at this time of day".....also my sense of impending danger has abandoned me..."You can't look at your Blackberry Mum when you are minding the children!" On this exclamation I was surprised to learn that I was minding the children. The nanny and I exchanged a glance. "But."....." No buts Mum.
You just have forgotten what it is like to have small kids!"

Later, at the swimming lesson, which was conducted at a friends' pool, I watched with the alertness of a mere-cat. But I forgot to amuse the little one while the bigger one swam, and when he ran for the swing, I forgot to predict that he might do this and propel myself across the lawn, placing myself in front of said swing. As I ran in an attempt to be there first, I could feel my daughter shaking her head in frustration.
I think the very important hedge funder, whose pool we were using, felt a little sorry for me, even though I was well outside his demo-graph, because he noticed me and asked where I lived?? Perhaps he thought I lived underground, or in an old peoples' home... but I told him I lived in the Cevennes. At this point he seemed resigned to the thought that I was probably senile and made no further attempt at conversation.
His wife, who had been talking to daughter while we sat by the pool, failed to notice my existence at all. To be fair they had just completed a 10 mile run in very bright lycra, and were probably both dazzled and exhausted poor darlings.
I decided not to attend the dinner they were giving that evening for fear of embarrassing them and my own kin but I am left with an overwhelming sense of the importance of colour in ones life.
Colour in all its permutations seems to live happily with those fortunate enough to have the time to notice it. For the less fortunate with little or no time to devote to anything other than accumulating vast wealth, I wonder if their lives may have become rather bleached!

Please scroll down.

Autumn....let the fun begin

Well. No excuses. I just haven't felt the buzz to write. This will happen most often when I am busy with the demands of others and cannot clear my head enough to jot a word.
Now though, all guests have left, a few work situations have been solved, the village is quiet again, the heat of summer has diminished to a sweet 24 degrees, the new store is up and running and the fishmonger is in need of a haircut!
He relies on me to cut his hair. On past occasions he has been the victim of a Norfolk barber....not a pretty sight. In early photos, when he had an abundance of satisfied follicles, the Norfolk style involved a pudding basin on the head as a template, followed by a severe parting to the side and what might be a polyurethane varnish to ensure lasting stability. This style inevitably had an accompanying mode of dress featuring a red cashmere V neck and a pair of green cords worn in the "Harry high pants" position.
I think it possibly made his mother very happy, and that was long ago. Now it is left to me to use scissor hands on what is left of his hair. I am in favour of a number one style, being that it is the only cut I am capable of, so every three months I sheer him and the result is perfection. I promise.

He has a rather fine head and looks younger than his advancing years. Gone are the high pants and the V necks and, without much encouragement, he nows wears his shirts outside his pants......or should I say trousers.....as one is english one should take pleasure in a well pronounced vowel!

Anyway the point is I am now back in France and am unable to cut the Fishmongers hair until I get back from NY. I am leaving tomorrow for Paris and the Maison Objet show where I hope to find lots of lovely goodies for the store at Christmas. I also hope to meet up with an old client from twenty years ago who has become somewhat of a TV celebrity. A Maverick Dealer, he labels himself!!! I have fond and evil memories of his Mr Bean like nature, especially around pay day, but we were good sparring partners so I look forward to seeing him again.

I am meeting up with daughter in Paris. She is doing the Deauville film fest. What fun to spend time with her, just the two of us together...been ages. Then we travel to NY and I get to see my three adorable grand children, and I may never leave.

Meanwhile the Cevennes delivers the last of summer and even as I write the four pink roses that I have on my desk are reminding me to enjoy every moment of these final warm days and clear evenings.
Sipping on my Pastis last night on the terrace I saw two shooting stars and a moon that sported a crimson ring. The hirondelle are still feeding their young under the eaves but their flight seems more urgent and I think they want to be gone. My figs are all ripe and my last guest has picked them and cooked them and they now sit in a bowl in the fridge...with a "Dunno wot to do with these!!!" exclamation every time I open the door.

Life is pretty perfect I'd say....everywhere there is beauty. Ah! but then I think of the Fishmongers slippers. but that is a whole chapter of it's own.

NFN:

I have temporarily abandoned La Belle France. Due to an urgent need for funds I am keeping a presence behind the counter in my little shop in Burnham Market Norfolk UK. I have set up a new gallery where I propose to keep everything, old, french and very functional. The gallery (of course) is above the fishmongers, so while you are queuing for your kippers you can pop up and purchase a monogrammed
linen sheet. Please do not write, phone or email me when, tucked up under your new purchase, you are asphyxiated with a sudden rush of "Odour de Poisson " I cannot help it. It will wash out I promise...I do my best but the Fishmonger does not like the sound of the extractor fan. July and August are his meanest and most tormented months.
I have been here now for two weeks and I am missing home and whippets and more to the point good food.
Today I tried to buy an organic chicken in Tesco's and was told they don't stock them because they don't sell. Well that says a good deal about this county. I am lucky because I live off the fish while I am here but, still, one needs a little variety every now and then. I miss those little yellow, corn fed darlings, and my weekly markets. I  miss the salad man who picks his leaves fresh from the garden on friday mornings and mixes it up with flowers and mustard leaves. I miss my jolly bread seller who always keeps me a round and robust, rough, grained, loaf under his white linen clad table, and the little man with the gravelly voice who sells buckets of wild flowers and home grown beets. It hurts me that so much melody has escaped my attention in the gurgling water that ripples through the village fountain and sends me happily to sleep almost under my window each night. I loved it when, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a large black  lab leap into the fountain and then hurl himself out again, shaking an arc of heavy, water beads all over the passers by and set everybody screaming with delight!
I am having bad withdrawals. I need a market and some seriously interesting characters, and some seriously good fruit and veg. So I am driving back again on friday next and once I feel my wheels rolling again on french tarmac, I shall be reassured with the promise of more sensual pleasures to come.

I am intending to visit my friend Kathryn Ireland at her beautiful home in the Tarn. Totally different from the Cevennes. The arid and rocky landscape transforms into rolling countryside more akin to Tuscany.
Kathryn's house is full of laughter and, well... full of Kathryn, who is exceptional in her ability to create pleasure in all areas, and sends all her guests happily off to bed each evening on delightfully satisfied stomachs while visions of sugar plums dance in our heads! Apart from all this she is a wonderful textile designer and decorator and tomorrow I pick up my copy of her new book. Summers in France. I dare not appear without one! In fact I need to sell them in the shop.
Reading this back, it sounds rather flat and humourless. But I guess that is how I feel at the moment. I really can't think what keeps anyone wanting to live in the UK. Mid July, a cold and foreboding sky, deserted beaches, and everyone milling about wondering what to do......
Come to sunny France...let the figs season begin!!

Full Blown Summer

It is upon us here in the Cevennes. Almost too hot to venture outside. The plants are looking forlorn and droopy and the whippets curled up all day with one sleepy eye on their respective food bowls.
I am wisely giving July 14th a wide berth this year due to St Hippo being the only village in France that still allows the dastardly petard. These are a type of "firework" more a bomb though, that is made up of dynamite in an L shaped metal tube.  Ecstasy is then accomplished by the bearer hammering the metal bar into the small cobbled streets, and letting off an explosion loud enough to break windows and cause stone lintels to crash to the ground. At 3 am in the morning this can spark erratic and cruel revenge. The first year I was here I seriously plotted pouring a bucket full of unmentionable effluence on the collective heads of my assailants, but as I am a visitor in their country it is probably wiser to swallow a bottle of Pastis and valium and put a pillow over my head. Luckily I have one stone deaf whippet, but the other has been traumatised to such an extent that his teeth rattle and knees knock together1
Anyway, this year I am going back to Blighty to set up some new space in the showroom and deposit my lovely purchases from the Avignon and Montpellier antique fairs. This will also mean I will escape the heat which is bearing down on us here in the Cevennes at 35 degrees. Today I found some relief in the river,,,What glorious refreshment to be able to swim in water fresh and cool from the mountains. We have it so good here.
I was hoping that The Fishmonger would come and join me for the last weekend but no. His season has begun. For the next ten weeks there will be an endless supply of people clamouring for his fishy delights.
He will disappear into his little smokery and prepare all manner of exquisite piscatorial products and when he re-appears he will be exhausted, grumpy and extremely unlikely to be up for anything else.
After the season his mind will turn to our house in Byron Bay Australia and he will begin to make travel plans and think of mangoes.
Actually this year I may be able to tempt him down here in the fig season. I have some potential beauties on my tree. But although he likes France he has a problem with the language,  but he speaks it more correctly than I. In Australia, on the other hand, he can quite easily stretch his Old Etonian vowels into a "She'll be rite maaaaate!" drawl and enjoys the physical confirmation with a hefty slap on the back. But here in the Cevennes, where the words are often spat at one through three or less teeth, and they come at you like rubber bullets and whole sentences bounce around your ears and are lost against medieval walls in incomprehensible twangs and thangs, The Fishmonger, dare not open his mouth, except to correct me quietly from the wings, on my appalling grammar. I argue that at least I make an effort and even if it sounds terrible to him, the french laugh with me and I am able to laugh at myself. This is possibly how I manage to get through life as a general rule.
So for now I am signing out because I have to pack the car with mirrors and textiles and pottery and retrieve the suitcase from under the attic stairs where I hide it to stop the whippets peeing on it. They
aren't going to like it one bit.

I am back in France. I have just spent a week in Norfolk punching a hole in the wall above my fishmongers shop. Well I didn't actually do it myself...Builders. But it has extended my showroom, by two more rooms.
Strange and coincidental, that The Fishmonger and I can't exactly live together, what with him being in Norfolk, and me in France, but our two businesses snuggle up quite cosily together. Now he has an extractor fan it is a good deal better.

THE FISHMONGER

I did try to live with the Fishmonger in Norfolk. I tried for two years. He lives in a small cottage on a main coast road. The ceilings are hobbit height and he is very tall. He bought the house thirty five years ago with an inheritance from his great aunt.

His mother helped him choose the curtains....they are a pretty floral with squirrels and nut trees in a tight repeat. and still hang proudly in his bedroom. The kitchen has a beautiful green formica surface surrounded by tiles depicting badgers and field mice. He eats off plastic picnic plates and his vast selection of drinking glasses have been gathered, one feels, from forsaken cider orchards, or neglected beer gardens on sunday afternoon jaunts!

I spent one cosy winter snuggled up with the Fishmonger in this cottage. He has a very efficient fire. It burns everything he gathers and he is a very efficient gatherer. It is rare for the Fishmonger to buy fuel. He successfully acquires anything combustible from the beaches, the fields and the neighbour- hood skips. He chops these finds into tiny pieces (his fireplace being quite minute) and keeps them in a cupboard under his stairs where they dry next to the night storage heater.

This method ensured our warmth in the winter of 95 and apart from dodging the odd molten missile that launched itself resentfully at our contentment, we were as cosy as the multitude of little bugs in their rugs that lived under the wood pile, the sofas, and the hospitably moist Wilton wool carpet that was recycled from his fathers office in 1953, and now adorned the cottage floor.

I was truly in love.

That winter we discussed how I would be an asset to my Fishmonger. Long into the night we thought of a thousand ways a stylist could wave her magic wand and enhance the fish trade. We eventually came up with the idea of opening a small fish cafe above his shop in the nearby village of Burnham Market. 

The fishmonger thought crab salads and sandwiches would be good fillers for the coach parties of old dears that descended on the village from spring to autumn each year. But I was ahead of him here.. Coming from Sydney where the ingredi- ents were fresh ( I think rural Britain still has a fifties concept of the word fresh...despite all the F words and School dinners!) and food was about camaraderie and sensuality.. I took the risk and stood my ground over endless foodie discussions huddled around the fire for the duration of a cruel East Anglian winter.

I wanted salads and, olive oils and sardines, soups, scallops and crepes. I wanted fish, pan fried, with lashings of garlic and lemon.

I have never understood the British obsession with fish in gooey batter, smothered in vinegar and soggy chips. Yuk! I wanted a plate to speak with colour and flavours, simple and tasty. An experience rather than a stop over and fill up!

One trip to the fish shop on Campbell Parade Bondi Beach could put a Pom in the picture about his national dish. Here you choose your fish and they grill it in front of you. You get half a lemon and a newspaper cone full of crispy chips.You sit at sunset in the empty band stand looking over the Pacific ocean watching the last of a few surfie stragglers swimming their boards to the shore,and the beefy lifeguards scratching their rumps and breaking a tinnie or two in mateship. Life's a beach. “Aint that the truth. “No wucking furries mate!”

I decorated the cafe in sea tones and covered it in shells inspired by a Greek ruin we had come across on a holiday to Lindos. Here we had hired a tiny green Corsa and the Fishmongers legs , being too long for the pedals, had ensured that we kangarooed around the island every day until, exhausted, we came to a stop back at our borrowed villa whereupon the Fishmonger lost himself among neighbouring vineyards and returned at dusk bloated and juice stained from gorging himself on the ripening grapes! and pomegranates!

I had a kitchen the size of an airing cupboard, and if someone was washing up and another was cooking at the same time, we had to stand bum to bum and some bums took up more space than others! I had no notion that I would be the one actually cooking in this space but after the dream came the reality and I quickly realised that every- thing was up to me and why not? The fishmonger was much better on the shop floor. He liked the repetitions of life. He needed to know he was safe.

“Would you like your head on or awf Madam”? he would enquire of his customers several hundred times a day and “Would you like a bag for that or not ?” Not one to be overgenerous with the plastic, and quite rightly.

We opened the cafe in the summer of 1996. We were packed from day one, Saturdays being our biggest day, the atmosphere at the tables was electric and as the space was so small people quickly became friends and brought friends and the mood was always alive and magnetic. There were exceptions however and a good cafe mood could be ru- ined by an unhappy marriage. I say this because you can kind of spot when a couple have run their marriage to the point of “sans issue.” These couples sit next to each other. Staring blankly ahead at the space that is sadly empty of their soul mates, they rarely converse except to comment on the food or complain about the service. Often they ask for the music to be changed or turned down and I am here to tell you they can kill a happy vibe as quick as you can say “Head on or awf.”

If all the remaining diners (All twenty four of them ) unanimously decided to rebel and keep the mood buoyant, then approximately three days later I would receive a letter of complaint in the post usually confirming my suspicions that I had ruined their entire weekend!

At this time in the village was a neighbour who had taken a vehement dislike to the Fishmonger. This was partly due to the fact that he ran a twee little gift shop with his over fragrant and orange stained girlfriend. The shop was called “La Belle Vie” or some such elaborate nom de francais. The back door opened directly onto where the Fishmonger stored his delectable waste bins. This meant there was a

profound conflict of aromas. Personally I am of the opinion that though “Odour de Poisson “ is not entirely marketable in even itʼs freshest form, it is an honest smell and preferable to “Odour de Fraises synthetique” that bombarded our senses on a daily basis.

Now, if you are of Essex origin and by some ugly twist of fate have found yourself trading in a quintessentially British village the like of Burnham where the “Windsor Factor” holds itʼs discreet little flag close to itʼs puffy chest, it is beneficial for you not to make too much of your- self. It is not wise to clad yourself in Nike lycra nor to sport gold ingots and an immensity of chest hair burgeoning from your opened track jacket. One chap is never expected to threaten another chap with his briefs in the post over boundary issues. And one needs to be very certain of ones case before one takes any such action towards said Fishmonger because he will raise himself, when threatened, up to his full Old Etonian stature and plot revenge,and he will park you and your nasty flashy jaguar in for days with his secondary fish vehicle sodden with the leakage from his last load, and when asked impolitely to move it, he will stare down at you from a very great height and reply. “Not for a piece of insignificant excrement such as yourself. No.” And while you are dancing Rumplestiltskinesque around the Fishmonger, punching the air in an hirsute rage, the Stylist will notice that you have inadvertently left the door open to your flat and she will quickly lo- cate that special delicacy the chinese duck egg (A gift from a returning traveller purportedly said to be one hundred years old.) and with the stealth and precision attributed to her trade she will secrete it under your stair carpet , stamp on it and quickly beat a retreat. Some weeks later you will find that not even the industrial cleaners are able to locate or remove the offending smell. One weekend we will find you gone. Your shop empty and your briefs un-posted.

It is true that The Fishmonger lamented the loss of his valuable,ancient duck egg for many weeks. What was he keeping it for? Would it one day accidentally end up in an omelette as a cafe delicacy? Best not to take that chance. So it was with smug satisfaction I revelled in its un- timely and infantile demise.

One saturday morning while setting out my wares on the miniscule cafe counter, a local and much celebrated hotelier rushed up the stairs to announce the arrival of an important food critic. It seemed that Jonathan Meades was a guest at The Hoste Arms and our good neighbour had recommended he eat lunch at our establishment.

Panic ensued. I was not prepared. I had written the Plat du Jour and placed it outside the fish shop. All the usuals were there, Cafe Salads, Scallops with parmesan, Seafood pancakes< Thai fishcakes.....and an interesting but unpractised dish I had concocted that very morning with salted cod.

I had bought the salted cod the day before in Portobello. I have long been addicted to foraging the friday junk markets under the flyover. I had already bought a floral bedspread and a couple of 1930s silk nighties when the thought occured....”Oh some salt cod would be excellent!!”

I had never cooked it before, nor had I any notion how to cook it...but I picked up the gauntlet.. I soaked the cod overnight (not long enough as it transpired.) and the next morning, very early I cooked it with chilli and chick peas, lashings of fish sauce and perhaps some coriander, cumin and pickled lemons.

After receiving news of the impending visit, I was naturally anxious to erase the above dish from the specials board . I wiped the excess fish guts, from a bass I had been filleting, off my hands and flew the length of the stairs to obliterate the risky item. Too late...Mr Meades was already first footing the bottom of the stairs. In order not to knock him off his axis and paralyse as well as potentially poison him, I braked excessively and pretended to be intent on polish- ing the banister with my eraser rag. He looked alarmed but fairly un- fazed as he continued on and up into the cafe.

He settled himself into a cosy corner and proceeded to study the menu. I tried not to focus on the salt cod. I repeated a mantra of “Choose the Thai fish cakes” over and over in my head. “I”ll have the salt cod”. he said “Sounds interesting”. That's it! There it was. I was done for, gutted, like the surrendering bass that was already judging me a fraud. Resigned to my inevitable fate, I served him up a healthy portion and waited for the choking........ It didnʼt come. Instead I heard the spoon scrape the bowl a number of times, then a polite request for seconds! The following weekend the Sunday Times ran an article by Mr Meades on the culinary delights of Burnham Market. It featured a rather fetching cartoon depicting the fishmonger and the hotelier and described my dish as an interesting “piri piri” oddity! I think I got off lightly and The Fishmonger having polished off the re- mains of the dish, dined out on the story for months. I was however rapidly realising that fish was not my forte. Love had driven me to embrace things beyond my nature.

Why is it that we women always look to developing the potential in our men? I had clearly decided that my Fishmonger needed to develop, he needed more colour, he needed me and my limitless imagination to put the sparkle into his life. To create the star of Fishmongers. What I clearly neglected to understand was that here was a man who still walked the worn path of his fathers Wilton. . This man was content with his life. Every Sunday he set off with his shrimp net and waders and on Monday he stocked his shop with the mussels and shrimp he gathered on at the weekend. This he had done for over thirty years and over that time hundreds of women had swooned at the very mention of his potted shrimp! He was a national treasure . A beautiful, eccentric, simple man with no expecta- tions to be anything other than he already was. I t was me who had to work a way to change. I had to discover how to be content with him the way he was and also have a life . Clearly the answer meant I needed to be on a long piece of elastic from Norfolk.

There are better things to do than.......

So, you see it has all mounted up on the desk...Things that need to be done...and now I have given myself the extra pressure of a blog, a Facebook page, and so far I have managed to avoid Twitter because of the stress of it all. I have a recording from childhood of my mothers voice in my head on repeat. Right now she is  at 78rpm, her voice getting shriller by the minute, and the more pressure I put myself under to complete something, the more she will shriek about my tardiness...

I remember a therapist telling me once that I had to kill my mother (well obviously not really, otherwise I would have been banged up for over twenty years now.) But symbolically. He gave me a pillow and suggested I punch it and scream at my mother. But I couldn't do it...I just couldn't. He said I would never get rid of the voice if I couldn't kill her there and then as a pillow. But I could hear the therapist's wife upstairs in the kitchen, offering her children lunch. Well I figured if I could hear her, then she could most certainly hear me. I put this to the therapist and he reassured me that  his wife could hear nothing.
I didn't believe him and so I was unable to deliver more than a feeble and feathery whisper into my billowy parent, before she was quick to remind that I was a failure at therapy too.

So I have repaired to the local bar and met up with two inspiring friends. Peter Poplaski http://blog.seniorennet.be/peterpoplaski and Marcus Reichert http://www.marcusreichert.com/ and under the influence of a citron presse and some very tall and inspiring tales, I have put off paperwork for another day.
This could be a reason  why I live in the Cevennes. There are plenty of fellow desk dodgers and a wealth of subjects of a more pressing nature to be discussed dissected  and dispatched. Anyway, I must buy some more staples before I can think of undertaking any form of paperwork. Shut up Mother!