Sentimental journeys, grief and coming home.
It is exactly a year since my father died. I’ve been thinking of him a lot and sometimes that’s fine, and sometimes it’s not.
When we moved here, my greatest concern was leaving my parents behind. If they had demurred, I don’t know if I could have done it, no matter how many times I told myself it wouldn’t take much longer to get to them from here than it used to take us to drive to them from London. But neither of my parents expressed any concerns, they were – outwardly, at least – enthusiastic and excited for us. I remain humbled by their emotional generosity. They raised us like that. Love hard. Live your life. Have adventures.
I think often about our first trip home after we moved here, and about saying goodbye to my dad very early on the morning we left. “Enjoy yourself,” he said. I do, Dad, I do. I promise.
I wrote about that trip for The Telegraph, and I thought I might share that piece with you today.
We arrive at Victoria Station and load ourselves and our cases into a tiny Zipcar. My husband comes to London regularly for work, but this is my first time back since we moved to France in September. We drive through Westminster, along Fleet Street, High Holborn, Rosebery Avenue, and through Islington towards our friends’ house in Stoke Newington.
London is beautiful, heavy with spring blossom. Pink cherries and fat white magnolias shade front gardens. I am knocked silent by nostalgia, not for our recent happy life in Hackney, but for everything London gave me. My first job in publishing over thirty years ago, my postgraduate year at City University, my first flat off Highbury corner, bought for £49,000 which then seemed like – was – an impossible amount of money, the life and friends we made in Hackney. This route is the artery of my adult life. I couldn’t bring myself to go past our old house, where I hear the new owners have cut down the two messy lime trees in the front garden, once home to dozens of sparrows whose loud chirruping woke me every morning, as I emerged from sleep like a rough, East London version of Snow White.
Our first few days contained a cast of thousands, or so it felt, as we caught up with those who had peopled our London life. We sat in our friend Richard’s garden, laughing and drinking fizz, sharing old jokes and potato salad, relaxing into old intimacies until it got dark, when we retreated inside and just kept on going. There was a friend’s fiftieth birthday in a club, where we drank margaritas and danced and I wore heels for the first time in half a year. Ouch.
I fell into conversations about books and plays and exhibitions, what was new, what was hot. And I realised I missed that chat, even if I didn’t go to the plays and exhibitions, or read the books. Talk is fast and laughter comes easily. I find it exhilarating, intoxicating, not to have to think about what I say before I say it, not to struggle with a second language. I resolve to explore the galleries and museums in Montpellier, Sète and Béziers, and perhaps to read a book that isn’t in any way associated with house renovation or French grammar.
Then we drove up to my parents’ house in the North East. We talk several times a week on the telephone. I WhatsApp with my mother every day, good morning, good night. I send her pictures of the port and she sends me pictures of her garden. I’m excited to see them, but anxious. My joy at our move has been tempered by leaving them behind. The guilt is a daily low growl. From the very beginning, when I first told them we were thinking of moving to France, they were excited for us. That was, I think, the greatest act of selfless love. It helped that they know Marseillan well and had stayed with us here one summer, in a house we rented directly opposite the one we live in now. When I tell them about the market, coffee in the Marine Bar, walks around the lagoon, they can picture it.
I worry that I will find them much changed. Those creeping, incremental changes of age which you barely notice when you see someone every day become more marked with the absence of months. My father, in his eighties, is very frail and blind. My parents’ days are punctuated with the arrival of health visitors, carers, cleaning ladies, the constant footsteps in the hall. Neither of them is much interested in food, which is a challenge for me as cooking for people is my way of showing love. I surrender to it, relax into it, sandwiches for lunch, soup for dinner.
I spend the days with my dad watching Pointless, holding hands, reading out Google searches about long-dead football stars from Bishop Auckland FC’s glory years in the 1950s, drinking tea. Two days before we leave, we introduce him to Audiobooks, and Henry Blofeld’s autobiography, Squeezing the Orange. After that, any intrusion into his study take place in near silence, as he listens to Blowers’ cheerful patrician voice describing test matches past. Sometimes, to sit together is enough.
On the morning we left, I got up very early to have a cup of tea with my mother, looking out over the garden, admiring the birch tree which years ago, we planted in memory of my grandmother, Barbara. I went upstairs to say goodbye to my dad, curled up in his bed, his white hair fluffy and soft on the pillow. We held hands. “It’s been a joy to have you,” he said, “Enjoy yourself”.
Manchester airport is a great place to bury your feelings, navigating the chaotic queues and jostling for a table in the scruffy cafés. I bought a lipstick, which I often do when I am sad, Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Volupté Shine, for anyone who’s asking. The manageable in place of the impossible.
As the plane circled over the Étang de Thau, I could see our village, its red roofs hugging the water, the spire of the Église Saint Jean Baptiste, then the square yard of Noilly Prat vermouth with its hundreds of oak barrels baking in the sun. From there, my eyes wandered up the port to our house, its own terracotta roof so recently replaced at eyewatering cost with tiles from the same factory the originals had come from more than a hundred years ago. Nearly there.
The bus from Béziers airport to Marseillan drives past the flat fields dotted with warehouses, out-of-town supermarkets and shopping centres, past the vineyards newly green with leaves, under the motorway bridges sprayed bright with graffiti. Arsé seems to have been at it again. I don’t know whether this tag is a name, a band, or a declaration of intent. As we get towards the edge of the village, the verges are rivers of red poppies.
The bus pulls up just thirty metres from the house and as we trundle our wheelie cases towards the large, rusty gates, I see the pots of geraniums and lavender I planted just before we left are filled with new flowers. Our friend Alison, who’s been housesitting for us, opens the door and the dogs race towards us, barking, leaping, their eyes wild. The cat walks along the balustrade, curling her tail in distain. Some swifts scream overhead. They are home and so are we. For the first time, I feel this is definitely home. We promise to enjoy it.
Roast chicken with asparagus, lemon and tarragon
This is a makes a good, easy and surprisingly elegant dinner and – joy of joys – you make it all in one roasting tin. I’m putting asparagus in almost everything right now, unsurprisingly. I used frozen peas and broad beans in this (thank you, dear Picard, French frozen food shop of dreams) as it’s a little early yet for fresh broad beans. You can leave out the peas and beans if you want, and simply up the asparagus.
Serves 6
1 chicken, about 1.5kg, jointed into 8 pieces, or chicken pieces – skin-on, bone-in thighs and legs ideally
About 450g new potatoes, well scrubbed, any larger ones halved
2 leeks, about 250g prepped weight, white and pale green part only, cut into 2cm slices – make sure they are well cleaned, because gritty leeks are second only to gritty spinach in the annoyance stakes
1 bulb of garlic broken down into cloves and the cloves bashed to break the skin
4-6 bay leaves
2 lemons, halved
5 tbsp olive oil
100ml chicken stock
2 bunches of asparagus, about 650g, see *TIP for prepping advice
300g broad beans
300g peas or petits pois
A large bunch of parsley, leaves and fine stems only, about 25g, chopped
A small bunch of tarragon, leaves only, about 2tbsp when chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Serves 6
Heat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Place a large roasting tin inside the oven to heat up.
Season the chicken well with salt and pepper.
Remove the tin from the tin from the oven. Carefully – because it’s hot, obviously – scatter the potatoes, leeks, garlic and bay leaves in the bottom of the tin, pour over 3tbsp of the olive oil and all the chicken stock, season with salt and pepper then stir.
Nestle the lemon halves in the tin.
Arrange the chicken pieces, skin-side up, on top of the vegetables. Trickle over the rest of the oil and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 30 minutes.
Take the tin out of the oven and turn the oven up to 220C/200C Fab/Gas 7.
Remove the foil from the tin. Baste the chicken with the juices then return the tin to the oven, uncovered, for a further 25 minutes, until the chicken is golden brown. Remove the chicken onto a warm plate. Cover lightly with the foil.
Add the asparagus, peas and broad beans to the tin with the leeks and potatoes. Give everything a stir and return the tin to the oven for 10-15 minutes, until everything is tender. Stir in the herbs. Arrange the chicken over the vegetables, squeeze over the roasted lemons and serve.
*TIP How to prep asparagus
You often see instructions on preparing asparagus which advise you to snap the stems on the cut asparagus because below the snap, the stems aren’t tender. This is very good advice if you are cutting your own or buying it in the very first flush of freshness. We are not all able to do either of these things, and in this case, snapping the asparagus will result in a lot of waste. In this case, trim off the woodiest part of the ends and if the outer skin looks at all tough, peel the bottom part of the asparagus with a sharp vegetable peeler. However you prepare it, you often end up with quite a lot of trimmed ends and throwing them onto the compost heap or into the food waste bin can feel a bit wasteful – don’t toss them! Next week, I’ll show you what to do with them.
Market haul 16 April 2024
A proper big shop today. This week’s market haul comprises: Merguez sausages, tomatoes, shallots, lemons, ginger, asparagus, pork chops, jointed chicken, ham, sweet onions from the Cévennes, salad onions, celery, leeks, ham, courgettes, six eggs, céleri rémoulade, carottes râpées, salade macédoine (when I was growing up, we used to call this Russian salad), cucumber, sand carrots, avocados, aubergines, Camargue rice, new potatoes, Clery strawberries from Pézenas.
Something in my eye. What wonderful dad memories. You'll always remember that visit. Precious. Thank you. X
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