Last Saturday my baby daughter got married and boy did that make me feel old. I always told my kids that ceremonies are powerful and important moments and my Kleenex consumption over the past week certainly bears me out. It started Tuesday night when we cracked a bottle and the bolshier of the bride's sisters made me laugh till I wept with her take on Special Occasion make-up artists. Like me her preference would be to wear a large paper bag over her head. At all times.

More tears of laughter Friday night when the sibs gathered for dinner and my son kept any wedding eve nerves at bay with his surreal banter. Every bride should have a brother who can do funny voices.

Saturday I moved on to the other kind of tears, blown away by the beauty of my daughter, by the vows she and her husband made, by the affection her new family clearly feel for her. I cried to see her wearing my mother's pearls and the little scrap of Graham tartan ribbon wound into her flowers just as it had been for my marriage to her father, thirty six years ago.

They weren't leaving for their honeymoon till Monday so Sunday night they called by for a cup of tea and a blow-by-blow. Maybe they just realised how flat a Mum can feel after her baby just got married. Anyway, idiotic as it is when a couple have been living together for years, waving her off on her honeymoon felt like an enormously poignant moment. Another milestone in the building of a family. A preliminary sketch, you might say, of how it will look when we old folks are gone.

Never got to taste the wedding cake either. Dang!

Posted by Laurie Graham at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday we signed the preliminary contracts on the sale of our little house in the mountains (cue brass fanfare: it's only taken two years for someone to make us an offer). So while we were up there we started packing, an activity guaranteed to raise tension in the most laid-back of families. Towels were the principal flashpoint. It was my intention to bring all the country house towels back to town. I have this thing about towels. I like them big and I like them fragrant. I also like my hand towel to match my bath towel, and I fear being caught with an empty towel cupboard. Mr F doesn't really think about towels until he's dripping and then his only stipulation is that they dry him in a satisfactorily non-scratchy manner. He'd quite like me to throw away any towel more than ten years old. And I'd rather not throw away any towel , ever. Even though, as of yesterday, we have a long position on towels. A very long position actually.

Then I was faced with further evidence of my hoarding tendency: the kitchen cupboards. Eight unopened boxes of pasta, four packages of risotto rice, ten cans, dear God can it really be true, ten cans of tuna. I could go on. This is all born of my fear of being snowed in without supplies, a distinctly unlikely event because if so much as a single snowflake fell we were down off that mountain faster than you can say 'frostbite.'

I always loved that moment in The Wind in the Willows when Badger, with his comforting winter store cupboard, rustles up supper for Ratty and Mole. That's what a store cupboard is for. Dipping into, when unexpected guests arrive or the snow's too deep to run down to the Wild Woods Tesco. I understand the concept. I just can't quite bring myself to do it. Which also accounts for the six cans of baked beans and, I'm ashamed to say, two kilograms of expired flour.

Nuts, definitely.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every time I'm back in the UK I get a little reminder of the satisfaction English sales' assistants take in telling you they don't have what you're looking for. A shocking contrast to all those famously rude New Yorkers who'll run around, determined to find you a pair of grey wool peg-top pants, waist 34, no cuffs.

I was just in England for the weekend and as I had half an hour to spare I thought I'd go buy a christening gift for our newest grandson. And where better to look than an SPCK shop. Still, I knew my first idea would throw them for a loop so I proceeded very carefully.
I said, 'This is an odd request in March, but do you have any Nativity cribs?'
The assistant's eyes did an alarmed flicker, doing their best not to come to rest on me, an evident nutter.
No cribs.
I said, 'Not even in the store room?'
No. Not even. Well, it is Lent. Or as it's called in the retail trade, The Run Up to Easter. It was a long shot. Fair enough. So then I moved on to Plan B, which was to buy a child's first prayer book. The children's section was easy to locate because it had the Narnia books. I have no quarrel with Narnia. In fact that's probably what I should have bought for young Conor but hindsight is a fine thing. I was losing my concentration, irritated by all the touchy-feely, fair trade, I'll celebrate your Eid if you'll tolerate my crucifix stuff on the shelves.

I said, 'Where are your children's prayer books?'
He said, 'the children's books are there and the prayer books are over there.'
Subtext: are you blind as well as ignorant of the retail seasons? And do I really have to get off my stool to deal with you?
I said, 'So I see. But there are no children's prayer books.'
'Well,' he said, 'in that case we haven't got any.'
Haha! Game, set and match to the English no-sales' assistant.
I said, 'I see my error. I obviously walked into the wrong shop. I thought this was SPCK. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge?'
And everyone in the store bowed their heads in devout English busyness until the door clicked shut and they knew that the nutter had left the building.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 03:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was a pretty ordinary morning. Breakfast, prayers, check emails and the world news. Then I thought I'd clean out the canary before the day got away from me. But as I approached his cage I realised something was amiss. No bird in sight. This was a moment Mr F and I have prepared for. The little guy is eight years old. Lately he's been spending a lot less time singing and a lot more time slumped on his perch. Like us really.

And there he was, lying on the floor of the cage in an ominous position. One beady eye stared up at me but otherwise there were no signs of life. Mouth-to-beak resuscitation? No. We agreed to let Nature take its course.

Would we inter him under one of the trees on our terrace? Would we lay him out on the terracotta tiles and let the sun bleach his bones? How would we break the news to his four-year old BF, Anna? All this was going through my mind as I showered and dressed. And then, and then... I heard Mr F hollering. 'Laurie! Come quickly! You're not going to believe it!'

Well. Pentito had not only risen from his coma, he was snacking, he was grooming. He was singing.
As he is right now. In fact he's been in full-throttle Ethel Merman mode several times today. So now we're wondering, what was that all about? Did he faint? Did he think we were due a brief intermission, to make us appreciate him more? Did a miracle occur inside that recently blessed bird cage? Or was he just kidding around? Only time will tell.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was warm enough to sit outside for coffee this morning. Mr F called me from the campo and took me on a date. It was good to see him looking brighter. Last week wasn't the best of weeks, what with the dentist beating him up, and a roller-coaster ride with our real estate broker, and then William F. Buckley dying. But now things are on the up. We sold our little house in the mountains, approximately two years after putting on the market. Spring is in the air. And tonight we're having a very belated house blessing.

We completely missed the January house blessing season because we were traveling so much, but Fr. Veniamin agreed to do it tonight, just as long as we don't turn it into a wine-soaked shindig, it being almost Lent and all.
Suits me. I'm getting to rather dislike wine-soaked shindigs. So the only small cloud hovering over me now, as the blessing hour approaches, is that I don't know whether he's coming alone and I don't know whether he expects dinner. Why do I let these little things bother me?

For those of you still waiting for spring and who could do with cheering up, take a look at the ever-entertaining New York Social Diary which today features a Palm Beach special. Look at the sun tans, look at the colours of the guys' jackets. Look at the facelifts. It'll make you smile. Betcha.

Posted by Laurie Graham at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)