7 good things | As winter draws to a close
Trips, nature, and some food too
Where I capture 7 good things to remember the season.
1 When winter brings mornings like this —
2 The grey zones, the AMBIGUITY OF WINTER, which I wrote about earlier last month. When daylight is soft and silvery and premature sunsets illuminate the sky with garish end-of-worldly reds. When I want negronis with dinner and prepare virtuous Bircher muesli for breakfast. When the world outside is harsh and bracing while everything inside is warm, blanketed and candlelit. It’s contradictory, those are life’s best bits.
3 A four-ingredient, marzipan kiss of a CAKE, where ease and indulgence precisely meet — almonds, butter, sugar, eggs. We had family staying with us and I made this cake one evening for the next day while we were chatting in the kitchen. It’s a back pocket recipe to keep close at hand. Recipe HERE.
4 Replenishing jars of MARMALADE. (Read about it here.) This year’s batch, with lemon and bay, I’m particularly pleased with.
5 SKIING is a highlight of our winter, a holiday together as a family with all four children. Many years ago, before we even had children, we devised the scheme to make sure all of our children loved skiing so much that, even as they grew older and followed their own adventures, a week together in the mountains was something they would not be able to resist. This plan has worked out remarkably well. Last week the weather was surreal, the snow was good, it was fantastic.
6 We drive to the Alps from London. ‘ESCALE’ — a word which I don’t think has a perfect English equivalent — is an overnight break in a trip that conveys more than simply ‘stopover.’ Its etymology is from the italian word ‘scala’ and refers to the ladder that enabled disembarcation from a ship in port. It evokes a break, a moment of restoring and refueling. This year we stopped in Reims where we tiptoed into the cathedral during mass and lit a candle with a thought for those gone near and far as my grandmother Babu always did; we nodded to the statue of Jeanne d’Arc; visited the Museum of Surrender 1945. Strolling down the main street we found Le Tablier for dinner at 9pm on Saturday night, a laid-back, friendly, boisterous family bistrot. I recommend it for your ‘escale in Reims’ needs.
7 It’s nearly March and SIGNS OF SPRING are everywhere. For years, on our walk to and from school with Max who is now nine, our game as soon as the sun starts reaching above the terraced houses has been to spot signs of spring in the front gardens, flower boxes, and parks. Crocusses have exploded into yellow and purple carpets, a few daffodils are already blooming, buds are piercing every branch. Spring is coming!
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Deliciously written as always. Thank you!