A Day on the Prime Meridian

Greenwich. The name already stops me dead, after filling me with lo-o-nging for years. I just wanted to be there, stand on that zero point, where all space is measured from, in a way.

I first read 'Longitude', by Dava Sobel, a few years ago, but saw the Jeremy Irons TV show about it even longer ago. And living in Australia, a country which is founded in part on a reliable clock, just gives the place a very personal resonance for me. One of the earliest clocks was given to Captain Cook, on his trip to watch the Transit of Venus in ?1770 - he was considered a good seaman, someone you could trust with a clock, someone you could trust to take readings of longitude with it.

So, onto the train to Greenwich on a pale, bare Sunday morning. The Bean reading the Tube stops, the Pumpkin climbing the seats, me just humming at the prospect of making this pilgrimage on my personal map of the world.

Across the grounds of the Maritime College, into the Maritime Museum. Wowowowowow. Passing through the Titanic, opening cupboards on the marine uniforms, the Pumpkin wondering where the person talking about their uniform got to before he could open the door to see them. Nelson's coat, complete with hole from the day he died. Maritime histories of slave movements, waves of migrations in red arrows around the globe. My journey is part of one of those red arrows too. Shiny propellors, ship decks, a lovely cafe ( I could paint my walls that colour, stand a palm like this in my house!) and a playground - what more could we want. A toilet, poor Pumpkin has the trots, the same intense kind which Bean had over Christmas in Stuttgart, cramping. I get snapped with a statue of Captain Cook, only right. We toil on up the hill, to the Observatory. I feel I've reached a summit. More toilet stops.

And then, weaving with my boys and the queues, past the telescopes, the rooms inside, to the octagonal observing room, the living quarters and the clocks themselves. It IS a pilgrimage: I pay silent respects, and could cry for how moved I am to be with them: H1, H2, H3. The Bean is fascinated by a great interactive display, the Pumpkin heavy in my arms. I sit in the semi-gloom, the Pumpkin sleeps, the Bean opens and shuts doors, I reflect on this journey to this point in time. It is something I wanted, not about them, but made the more precious to be doing it with my two treasures, made so far away, over on 171 or so, not 0 as here. I feel triumphant as we ask another tourist to snap us right on the line, our feet on the Sydney point. We made it! Maybe the ancient mariners felt like this when they thought they'd fall off, get lost, run aground - and then didn't.

A loud, freezing, BRILLIANT high point racing on the ferry back to Tower Bridge. The boys screaming at the loud rushing water, me snapping, laughing, roaring at what IS possible for a mother to do with her young boys, at where it's possible to BE. Away upriver, along the old wharves, past the docks, past the new Canary Wharf stockbroker sheds, along the way they came back in after sailing bout the world, there's the Tower Bridge, the Gherkin, the Tower of London.

Did I tell you boys, I nearly fell out of a window there, before I was even two? The circle turns. The day ends with more Tube travel, a show - Marianne Dreams, more Tube travel, dinner with friends, a hooge day, but wonderful life.

Making a Winter Fair

The school has changed its format for the midwinter, Christmas, event. This year, it's to be a market like a European Christmas market, with entertainment, food, things and the traditional room for the kids to sell off their own old toys before Christmas. It'll be held in the school, on a Sunday and the hope is that more fathers and parents who might not often be at the school - will drop by.

In a burst of nostalgic rightness, I volunteered German christmas baking, and telephoned Omi for her recipes. Baking delicious aromatic spices when it's dark and cold outside, perfect! Not what I'd ever do in Australia, part of this whole year's thang. A delightful book arrived full of Swabian gutzl-recipes and history, with Omi's handwritten recipes (and margin notes re the costing of same!), some of aunt M's own recipes with her very pragmatic, hilarious notes. Treasure. So I set off and baked a practise batch of something. One day, The Pumpkin and his small friend O made a round of 'staghorn buttons', with currants for button-holes, the dough rolled in cinnamon. Great. And icing the cutouts was most of the fun.

Then, in an interminable meeting one evening, it became apparent that there were just too many biscuit bakers already underway. So, in an easy sideways leap, I went savoury. As is my want. I decided to do three relishes, which could conceivably be part of an Australian christmas dinner, and might be interesting here too: caramelised onions, a pineapple chutney from Queensland and watercress pesto. Relish Australia is born.

The boys cried on the sofa - as I sliced enormous Spanish brown onions on 3 evenings, and spent hours caramelising them with sugar and vinegar in Stephanie Alexander's recipe. Somewhere, there is a photo of my mascara running black down my face, and a big wide, winter-white skinned smile!Our little room ponged of onion for days! LMM chopped cashews and watercress all over the kitchen, green specks, and I whizzed them with garlic, olive oil, parmesan and lemon. A search of ABC North Queensland's site gave me a recipe which worked well with tinned pineapple from South America.

With an enormous vase of eucalyptus leaves on my table on the day, I was one of the few savoury types (!) in a room with divine cakes, pastries and miles of gorgeous biscuits. Crepes from Madame I. The day was a flurry of people, conversations, children, the crowd all really into this event. The Pumpkin had a sleep with his narni, under the table; the Bean scooped a pair of moon boots. And Relish Australia sold out by 1pm.

Update: There have beeen frequent winter walks along the Dinosaur Park, aka Lee Fields, with the Bean on the moon boots, the Pumpkin oh his pedal-less bike, me with i-pod, walking briskly! We are approached about the moon shoes every time, they're an absolute cracker.