Many happy returns

Today is my oldest daughter’s “golden” birthday:
She is seventeen on the 17th of June.

We moved to England when I was 7 months pregnant with Rebecca, and I remember, so vividly, that last long week of waiting . . . and how the days seemed to be suspended, caught in amber, dragged out into long golden twilight.

I remember feeling really impatient to know what this unknown person was going to be like . . . and the answer was smart, strong, fierce, quick-witted, opinionated, stubborn and charming. She looked like her father; still does, but never more so than the moment she was born. She was quick to walk, to talk, to read. She was impatient and bossy – but with an endearing giggle, and an unexpected tender side. I hardly remember life before her, and I’m amazed at how quickly the years of her childhood have gone by; how clichéd is that?

At this time of year, I’m always really conscious of the fact that we are climbing ever nearer to the summer solstice. Does anyone else feel slightly melancholy when we tip over to the other side -- and the days begin to gradually diminish?

And now, as my oldest daughter nears adulthood, I think about how we are nearing some sort of zenith – but a kind of falling-off point, too. And unlike the seasons, my daughter’s childhood won’t come around again. That funny little person – my little Beccalou, who always had her nose in a book – is just a snapshot now.

In a week, my daughter will be going to Ghana – and who knows how that challenge will change her? Later on this summer, she will experience job internships, university applications, a trip to Cyprus, a long weekend at the Reading Festival. Solo adventures, all. Not unaccompanied, but unaccompanied by me. I’m happy for her, and delighted by her growing confidence and sense of her own powers. There is nothing, at seventeen, but a world of possibility . . . and mothers need to make way and step aside. (But she knows where to find me!)

Happy Birthday, Rebecca! And many happy returns

simple things

Forget school, and scratchy woolen uniforms, and the alarm clock going off too early.
Here there is only the pleasure of simple things:

soft, slouchy clothes to wear
and bare feet,
sometimes rubbed down by sand

iced tea by the pool
and cold watermelon, a triangle held in the hand
with juice running down to your elbow

we eat with the appetite of birds, or babies,
little and often,
every meal an outdoor picnic

The sky is cloudless blue every day,
no threat of rain to chase us inside
and interrupt our sun-worship

We give thanks for dependable breezes
and other cooling things:
pool and sea and ice lollies

Not to mention chilled white wine
sangria, the local specialty
and cold beer, of course

And the very best thing?
(besides friends to share the fun
and a laughing, teasing father)

Lots of good books
and plenty of time to read them.

Sending out happiest high-summer birthday greetings to Christina . . .
who has made an art of simple things.

Diary of a Provincial Lady

Recommended reading: The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield. Although it was written in 1930, any woman who feels harried, ineffectual and even occasionally ridiculous, will find much to identify with – and laugh at – here. So in the spirit and style of the inimitable Delafield, I offer up a few highlights from the past week of my life. An affectionate homage . . . from a 21st century provincial lady.


June 12. – Sports Day once again. We arrive late and miss youngest daughter’s first and best event: hurdles. Daughter’s face is as thunderous and chilly as the weather. Discover that daughter has no other events until after lunch, so we meander around the fields, dodging dogs and engaging in conversation about the weather with various acquaintances. Universal consensus that weather is not as bad as last year, but not as nice as the year before that. Congratulate myself on getting clothes right: am wearing pastel linen, as a nod to June, with a trench coat for warmth. (End up not taking off trench coat for the entire day; might as well have worn jeans and a fleece.)


Feel intensely jealous of better-organized sorts who have brought flasks of coffee. Speak at length to woman with five children who has attended fifteen Sports Days in a row. Feel profoundly glad to have only two children. Feel intensely jealous of better-equipped sorts who have brought attractive deck chairs. Eat my hog roast sandwich and strawberries and cream standing up. Experience intense back ache by 4 pm – and more than six hours of continuous standing.

Commisserate with daughter, after humiliations at the high jump. Of course she feels herself to be the cynosure of every eye. Attempt to convince daughter that no one really notices or remembers these things. Cannot help but feel that sporty parents with equally sporty offspring derive more enjoyment from this sort of event. Decline to participate in Mother’s Race. Help clear up empty bottles (beer, wine and champagne) from the Leavers’ Tent and marvel at the English constitution. A couple of weak Pimm’s are enough to do me in.

Take two ibuprofen the minute I arrive home and fall asleep, fully clothed, at 6 pm. Later rouse myself to make some popcorn and watch South Pacific with youngest daughter. Am impressed, chiefly, by the smallness of Mitzi Gaynor’s waist. (Query: What happened to the small waist? Not just mine, but everyone’s?) Cannot help but think that the film was not nearly as good as I remembered. 1950s production values and acting style have aged badly.

Later in the week I learn, from walking partner, that many of the parents at the Sports Day attended a 50th birthday party in a Moroccan-style marquee later that evening. Listen, raptly, to descriptions of costumes – particularly the unsuccessful ones. (Agree that the post-40 bosom requires support.) Marvel again at the superior English constitution.

June 14. – Visit senior school in Oxford with youngest daughter. (After Sports Day, youngest daughter gets a three-day break from school.) Ponder the conundrum of private education. Realize that neither child has attended a full week of school since mid-March. Consider that oldest daughter, who is on study leave for her GCSE exams, sports the tan of a person who lives in the Caribbean.

Accompanied by two impossibly gorgeous and self-confident 13 year olds, we view the playing fields, science classrooms, art studios and theatre of the school in Oxford. Admire the large Wind in the Willows themed mural in the dining hall. (Remember that Kenneth Grahame is alum of the school.) Wonder aloud if youngest child will go in for rowing. Youngest child expresses doubts as to the likelihood of this event. (Query: Why is that all school tours consist of the same constituent parts, and yet leave such different impressions?)

After school tour, youngest daughter and I – weak with hunger – walk to Mamma Mia pizza place. Feel most keenly that pizza place in walking distance of school is huge asset. Youngest daughter wants to attend school in Oxford. Feel most keenly that entire family should move to Oxford.


June 15. – Oldest daughter finishes Greek exam by 10 am and needs to be picked up from school. Youngest daughter cannot rest easy until we visit the pet store and purchase some hamsters. Remainder of day occupied by visitations to various pet emporiums.

Mem: parental weakening on pet issue can quickly lead to full-scale capitulation. On Saturday, oldest daughter wins a goldfish from some carnival game at the Marlow Regatta. Permission to bring home goldfish is grudgingly granted. According to some complicated sibling equation, youngest daughter requires hamsters in order to square up the laws of fairness. Mother is final arbiter of fairness; justice must be served. Weak mother is worn down after 48 hours of dedicated pleading and nagging.

Visit to pet shop involves significant expenditure. Internet research has not accounted for items like toys and special snacks. Purchase of hamsters requires visit to aquarium. Single fish is lonely; more fish are required. Also, plants. Unexpected expenditure incurred. Husband not informed of expanding pet menagerie. Children remind mother that fish, hamsters, chickens and a cat don’t really count. Only dogs, which are still denied to children, are proper pets.


June 16. – Email from husband, which didn’t look important, turns out to be invitation to opera.

Apparently we are last-minute guests for corporate entertainment with company that husband does no business with. Would have been prudent to Google company and attempt to learn something about hosts. Instead, spend morning driving children (and camping paraphernalia) around Berkshire countryside. Husband arrives home at 3 pm to find undressed wife, who is shaving her legs and wondering why she is not a person who keeps an up-to-date pedicure. Cocktails begin at 4 pm in Hampshire. Feel dismay at lack of appropriate opera wardrobe; finally resort to silk blouse, old skirt and ubiquitous pashmina.

Marvel at Russian, Korean, French, Greek and Norwegian fellow guests – all of whom speak perfect English. Despite the lack of language barrier, though, conversation is predictably stilted. Having dispatched the topic of the weather, I attempt to engage a French woman in conversation about differences between English and French culture. Although French woman’s children have spent their entire lives in London, apparently they are inviolably French. Suspect that I have managed to inadvertently insult French woman. Resolve to stick to weather in future conversations with corporate wives. Also manage to disagree on opera – which has a preposterous plot, something to do with three oranges. Husband and I enjoy dissecting guests on long drive home; suspect that one man has rented partner for the night.

June 17. – Endure yet another school visit with youngest daughter. Although she assures me that “there is less than a one percent chance” that she will want to attend this school, we sacrifice the better part of a day in the pursuit of thoroughness. Arrive at school having not received the letter that prospective students should wear their own clothes. Name tag is misspelled. None of this bodes well. Return to school late, having been lost in the town’s one-way system. (Miss tea and cake; do not miss making polite conversation with other prospective parents.) Sat-nav proves bloody useless; only find school, in the end, by doing the opposite to what the sat-nav suggests. Feel sure that inability to find school is a sign.


Oldest daughter’s 16th birthday. Oldest daughter thrilled that no GCSE exams fall on her birthday. Oldest daughter thrilled to be left home alone with friend-who-is–a-boy.

The birthday girl has requested chicken pot pie and red velvet cake for her birthday meal. Reflect that it would have been better to start labour-intensive birthday meal before 6 pm. Unsurprisingly, we do not manage to eat before 9 pm. Husband opens bottle of champagne. Newly christened 16-year-old quaffs champagne like an old pro, which raises questions in the maternal mind.  Cannot help but remember the hot day in June when oldest daughter came into the world.  Reflect that sixteen years is a long time -- which has suddenly gone by very quickly.

Carrot cake: for the birthday girl

Carrot Cake: for my daughter's first birthday

and also her fifteenth

The recipe is blotted with my positive review

and the subsequent spatterings which indicate

frequent usage!

I just took my Carrot Cake out of the oven, and the air is richly perfumed with cinnamon and so many memories of birthdays past.

I first made this perennial favorite for my oldest daughter's first birthday.

I can't recall why; perhaps I thought that the pureed carrots made it appropriate for a toddler? Certainly I tend to think of it as a wholesome cake. It is a dense, moist cake, too. You never have to worry about it slumping or tasting dry; it is sturdy and reliable, and it lasts for days . . . assuming there aren't more than two parents plus a birthday girl to eat it. (If you've got a crowd, I have found that people tend to be greedy. Don't count on left-overs!) I make this cake at least once every year; if I don't make it, people get a bit plaintive.

Just a taste of carrot cake!

Although I rarely look at our old photo albums, today I indulged in a fit of nostalgia. So much has changed, but my girl still has the same cheeky grin -- albeit, toothier.

My baby girl

Last night I couldn't sleep, and I started thinking about the night 15 years before when I lay awake all night with mild contractions. I remember feeling ready to get on with it: I wanted to meet my girl.

I remember being vaguely aware that nothing but would ever be the same again.

My daughter was born at 2:18 pm on June 17 in the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, England after what I like to describe as "inadvertent natural labor." Named after both grandmothers, she was the first grandchild on both sides of the family. My first impression on meeting her was that she looked just like her father! That similarity is more than skin-deep; she is smart and strong-willed, also like her father.

She walked early, talked early, read early . . . and now she is anxious to grow up and assert her independence in other ways. This year has been one of enormous physical and emotional change, and sometimes it is hard for me to keep up.

I suppose that is why I am grateful for these small rituals, these paper-chains of continuity between the past and the present.

Carrot Cake: at my birthday girl's request.

Berta’s Carrot Cake
(from The New Basics Cookbook, Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose or plain flour (if weighed in ounces, it will be approx. 12 oz)
2 cups granulated sugar (16 oz)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup (8 oz) corn oil
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups pureed cooked carrots (approximately 10 2/3 oz)
1 cup (8 oz) chopped walnuts
1 cup (8 oz) moist sweetened coconut
¾ cup crushed pineapple, drained (approximately 6 oz)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 F/175 C. Line two 9 inch cake tins with waxed paper and grease the sides.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda and cinnamon together in a large mixing bowl. Add the oil, eggs, and vanilla, and beat well. Then fold in the carrots, walnuts, coconut and pineapple. (I use my Kitchen Aid mixer for all of these steps; run it on low for the last step and scrape the sides well.)

Divide the batter between the two tins and place on the middle rack of the preheated oven. The cake will need approximately an hour to cook through. The edges will pull away from the sides of the tin and a toothpick will come out clean when it is ready.

Cool the cakes in the tin for 10 minutes, and then invert them onto a baking rack and let completely cool before frosting.

This cake tastes really delicious and wholesome without frosting, but for a birthday cake you are going to need great creamy gobs of cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons (3 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups (approximately 18 oz) confectioners/icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of ½ lemon
Method:

Cream the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and well-incorporated.

Slowly sift in the icing sugar, and continue beating until smooth (no lumps!). Stir in the vanilla and lemon juice. Adjust the sugar for thickness. It needs to be fairly thick or it will slide off the cake!

You may want to garnish the cake with finely chopped walnuts and/or grated coconut. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t.

An Oldie but a Goodie (not my husband, but the dessert)

Tiramisu, two-thirds gone

I’m not sure why, but the January birthday season definitely had a retro flavor this year. After years of loyalty to carrot cake, we revisited the desserts from our yesteryears: I had Italian Cream Cake, little daughter had Red Velvet cupcakes and Sigmund had Tiramisu.

When Sigmund and I first started dating, in the early 90s, tiramisu was all the rage. It was the hot new thing which quickly became the ubiquitous and predictable thing; however, we truly loved it. On our first date, at the legendary Carrabba’s on Kirby, we shared one. For years afterward, if it was on the menu, Sigmund invariably ordered it.

When our youngest daughter was born, we couldn’t decide on a name. My parents were staying with us – we lived in Trinidad at the time – and each day we would come up with some names to present to Sigmund. (Eventually, we both had to come up with short-lists and proceed by process of elimination.) I remember someone, probably my mother, suggesting that we name the baby “Tiramisu.” Just say that with a drawling Texas accent: TARA-ME-SUE. It was even better with our Italian surname! (Of course, we didn’t name our child after a dessert; but funnily enough, she loves tiramisu and is sure to order it if it appears on the menu.)

I don’t know when it stopped being Sigmund’s default dessert . . . but at some point, there was that thought: I haven’t had tiramisu in ages! Don’t you agree that some of the best things in life are the rediscovered old loves?

There are many, many recipes for tiramisu, but I like the one from The New Basics Cookbook. It employs all of the crucial ingredients: ladyfingers, mascarpone cheese, espresso, an orange liqueur, Marsala wine and chocolate. Also, the texture is just right – creamy, but not too “wet,” like some restaurant versions. The crucial thing, as far as I’m concerned, is to make homemade ladyfingers for the sponge base. Now some people think that store-bought, commercial ladyfingers are fine, but I think that you need that “from scratch” touch. Ladyfingers aren’t difficult to make, especially if you have a good mixer, but they require a tiny bit of patience. I realize that my idea of a tiny bit of patience (when it comes to baking matters) is subjective. However, I promise that this recipe is its own reward.

Ladyfingers (my mother’s recipe)

Ingredients:

6 egg yolks
4 egg whites
¾ cup caster sugar
1 cup sifted flour
Powdered (confectioner’s) sugar

Method:

Beat the 6 egg yolks until they are light, and then add ¼ cup of sugar. (You can use your paddle attachment or your whisk attachment, but you will definitely need the whisk for the next step. I use separate bowls and separate attachments so I don’t have to wash up between steps.)

In a separate bowl, beat the 4 egg whites until they are foamy. Gradually add ½ cup of sugar until the mixture is glossy and stiff – but not dry. It should look like this:

Carefully fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Then, sift the cup of flour – gradually – into the mixture and fold in with a large spatula. Use as delicate of a touch as possible.

Working quickly, the mixture can either be piped onto a wax paper-covered cookie sheet – or just spooned on. I do the latter, as you are going to break up the ladyfingers for this recipe anyway. I just spoon the batter into rough, fat fingers. Peasant fingers, I guess!

Cook for approximately 10-12 minutes; they should turn a slightly rosy color, not quite tan. Loosen at once with a spatula and dry between wax/parchment paper in an airtight tin. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

I believe that most people perform acts of devotion in their lives – we only disagree as to what we think is worth the extra bother. I’m sure that I’m sloppy and slapdash when it comes to lots of things, but I have a shortlist of things that matter to me:

A hand-written thank you note
A beautifully wrapped present
Pressed sheets
Homemade birthday cake

Happy Birthday, Sigmund! Actually, you are a bit of an oldie . . . but SUCH a goodie

At Eleven

My youngest daughter: Skating away

At eleven, my daughter has the coltish legs of someone who hasn't quite matured into her latest growth spurt.

At eleven, my daughter will fuss over her hair, but forget to brush her teeth.

At eleven, my daughter listens in on grown-up conversation. She knows a lot more than her older sister did at the same age.

At eleven, my daughter still tells me (most*) of her secrets.

At eleven, my daughter likes me to read to her. We are working our way through the Little House on the Prairie books - a series that I also loved as a child. (She got some of the more obscure titles for her birthday.) She likes books with spirited heroines.

At eleven, my daughter wants to help me in the kitchen.

At eleven, my daughter understands the world in a way that is precociously wise . . . and yet so innocent, too.

At eleven, my youngest daughter will kiss me - without embarrassment - on a city bus. (My older daughter scowls at us. "Stop it," she says, in a hostile voice.)

At eleven, my daughter is uninterested in cell phones. She enjoys her friends, but they are not all the world to her. She has a solitary streak.

At eleven, my daughter and her friends still bring their teddy bears to sleepover parties. They wear sweet flannel pajamas. They talk unselfconsciously when a mother enters the room. And yet: they experiment with make-up, know all of the lyrics to the Katy Perry album and dress up as the St. Trinian's girls. "I'm a posh tottie," one of them says to me. (I'm speechless. "That's nice, dear," I choke out like someone's maiden aunt.)

At eleven, my daughter is still holding tightly to me with one hand, but reaching out beyond me with the other.

Happy Birthday to ME

A birthday offering to myself

Italian Cream Cake

If I had known how much spoiling I was going to get today, I wouldn't have dreaded my birthday so much! Sigmund and the girls overwhelmed me with a stack of delicious books, anti-ageing skin care products (should I be offended?), a special dinner away with friends and a pair of diamond earrings. What a way to ease the pain of January! I also got lovely cards, funny cards and a few slightly rude cards . . . which, nevertheless, made me snort with laughter.
Two of my favorites are:

My idea of housework is

to sweep the room with a glance

and

Inside me lives a skinny woman

crying to get out.

But I can usually shut the bitch up

with cookies!

This last sentiment (oh yes, the truth does hurt) from one of my walking partners . . .

As with so many things in life, it is tough to maintain the proper balance between exercise and baked goods. On my birthday, I don't even try. Let me eat cake is my mantra.

For some reason, this year I had a yen for Italian Cream Cake. I hadn't made one in years, partly because mine never tastes quite as good as my grandmother's always did. When I was a child, it was my favorite cake -- and it made a perennial appearance at birthdays, especially the one I shared with my grandfather. I was the first grandchild to be born, on both sides of the family, and it was truly the catbird seat. My grandfather was the rather stern father of two boys, but he was a loving, indulgent grandfather to me. As far as I can tell, I got the biggest portion of his sweetness.

My grandfather had a notable sweet tooth, and I particularly remember how much he loved cookies. My grandmother always had freshly baked ones in a jar on the counter, and he would come into the kitchen and pull out a handful. (He had unusually large hands and a really efficient metabolism.) Whether you believe in nature, nurture or astrology, you can see that the cookie problem is really not my fault!

As far as I know, Italian Cream Cake is a Texas/Southern confection and nothing like that cake with ricotta cheese and candied fruits that sometimes goes by the same name. I searched all of my cookbooks, and could only find it one other place -- a church cookbook. Emeril Lagasse did a show on Deep South Desserts, and his recipe is nearly identical to the one handed down by my grandmother. It is a moist yellow cake, rich with coconut and pecans and topped with the the sort of cream cheese frosting that also tends to go on carrot cakes. I was a bit worried to serve it to English friends, as many kids "of today" don't seem to like nuts or coconut, but I really shouldn't have wasted my time fretting. In fact, if I were inclined in that way, I could have worried about having some cake left over for tomorrow! But why worry at all? I'm not sure why, but my friends have come up trumps this year and I am going to be celebrating all week long. It's my birth-week, I guess.

Italian Cream Cake

Ingredients:

4 ounces of butter
4 ounces of shortening (Crisco or Trex)
2 cups of sugar
5 eggs, separated
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces buttermilk
2 cups moist coconut (do NOT use dessicated coconut)
1 cup chopped pecans

Method:

Prepare three 9 inch cake pans by greasing the sides and bottoms, and then lining the bottoms with wax or parchment paper.

Cream together the butter, shortening and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the 5 egg yolks, and mix until the ingredients are creamy and well-incorporated.
Sift together the flour and the soda, and then gradually add to the butter mixture – alternating with the buttermilk. You should end with the flour.
Slowly beat in the coconut and pecans.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they have firm peaks. Fold carefully into the batter.

Divide the mixture between three 9 inch pans. Bake at 350F/175C for 30-35 minutes. I baked my three layers in two different ovens. The top oven only required about 33 minutes, while the bottom oven needed about 38 minutes. The cakes should be golden brown, should spring back to the touch, and will pull slightly away from the sides when they are finished. Cool on wire racks.

Frosting ingredients:

8 ounces of cream cheese
4 ounces of butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
16 ounces/1 pound box of confectioner’s (icing) sugar, sifted

Method:

Cream together the cream cheese, butter and vanilla. When the mixture is light and fluffy, gradually add the sifted confectioner’s sugar. If the frosting is too stiff, you can thin it with a small amount of milk.

Not as good as Grandma used to make,
but everyone did have seconds!

The inevitable post-Christmas crash

As I was putting away the last of the Christmas decorations this afternoon, I couldn't help but ponder the cyclical nature of things.

I was having a few "deep" thoughts -- death, morality, war and such -- but mostly I was thinking about my melancholy task, the upcoming January birthday season, my complete inability to keep to my New Year's resolutions (already!) and the defensive driving class that I took last night.

For me, January is the cruellest month -- never mind what T.S. Eliot said.

My living room looks so spare and empty without the Christmas greenery and baubles -- and the landscape outside my windows is equally drab and uninviting. I know that the post-holiday letdown will eventually follow the burst bubble of seasonal anticipation, but my feelings about it are just as fresh every time. Equally predictable? The fact that my eager decorating helpers (ie, children) will be suspiciously scarce when it comes to the Christmas shakedown.

The next three weekends will be given over to birthdays - mine, then youngest daughter's, then Sigmund's. Interspersed between these are the birthdays of an extraordinary number of friends, other relatives and godchildren. You would think that we made some pact to only consort with January babies. It's like Christmas all over again, but I've already used up the good gift ideas.

I have pretty much the same feelings about my birthday as I do about New Year's Eve: I would prefer ignoring it, but on balance it makes me feel worse to do nothing about it than something. My birthday often falls on the first day back to school -- appropriate, as it always has something of that cold, achy and unwilling quality to it. One of my childhood birthday parties had to be cancelled because of snow -- statistically improbable in central Texas -- and I've been emotionally guarded about the day ever since. Sadly, my children's birthdays -- which I once did enjoy -- now have a similarly feet-dragging quality about them. I still like making the birthday cake, but other than that, they seem to be a complex negotiation involving How Much? and How Many? I find that mass sleepovers have little to offer the parent.

Honestly, I'm in a bad position regarding gift-receiving. We opened nearly all of our presents on December 13th, before we left for the Bahamas, and none of them have been formally thank-you noted. As with emails, I find it best to "strike" when the gift (and gratefulness) are still fresh. A tardy thank-you note just always feels stale -- both for the giver and the recipient.

And that reminds me: I haven't done a durn thing about catching up with my emails. I know that developing better correspondence habits is a long-haul kind of resolution, but my start has been so slow that it doesn't bode well for the mid-stretch. I've also broken my promise to Sigmund -- that we would go to bed at a decent (ie, before midnight) time. No matter how much I can acknowledge that going to bed earlier and waking earlier would contribute to better moods and greater productivity, my natural body rhythms are resistant. I could hardly be expected to go bed last night at 11 pm when I had only awakened at 11 am. Right? Also, the six hours lost to my defensive driving course meant that I had hardly experienced life that day.

What was I thinking when I signed up (in November) to take a defensive driving course on Sunday, January 4, from 5 pm to 9 pm? I had nearly forgotten about it altogether, because I still haven't flipped over to the new 2009 calendar. I was shopping in Waitrose, thinking about the nice roast dinner I was going to make for my grateful family (who had been living off of leftovers since January 1st), when it came to me in a blinding and sickening brain-flash. I barely had time to drive home, thrust an already roasted chicken in the general direction of my husband, and speed (well, not literally; this being the crime that I was "done" for) down the motorway to the appointed destination. I suppose that there never is a good time for this sort of thing, but a Sunday night coming off of a holiday seems like a particularly bad time. There was an upside, though. One of the participants, an amazingly chatty Australian, had obviously decided to have a post-holiday clearout -- and had brought boxes of biscuits and Quality Street to pass around. There was also a coffee machine which freely dispensed coffee and hot chocolate -- and all of the inmates took full advantage of this amenity. (The woman behind me drank six hot chocolates -- not that I noticed.) Yes, there was about one hour of information dragged out to fill four, but at least we had snacks.

Artificial group activities are always fascinating to me. Even in a crowd of middle-aged, white people -- yes, we were truly a bourgeois set of rule-breakers -- you could immediately tell who were going to be the talkers, the leaders, the clowns and the non-participants. Temporary bonds form (and antipathies rear up) no matter how limited the interaction. I did learn a few things, though.

• Only 4% of collisions occur on motorways. You really need to watch out for the intersections and rural roads.
• There are approximately 300 speed cameras in the Thames Valley, but only 30 or so will be actually working at any given time. They get moved around. Apparently, it costs about 30,000 pounds to install each one, but they can't afford to keep them all running at the same time as there would be too many offences to deal with.
• There were slightly less than 3000 fatalities in 2007 - the lowest number since 1934. A dubious sort of progress.
• You will be offered a defensive driving course if you don't have any points on your license, and if you were not going more than 10 miles over the speed limit. After completing your course, you get a "clean slate" again. My criminal record has now been expunged . . . I suppose that's some kind of January progress.