I have been travelling a fair amount recently – in the past few weeks, I’ve made trips to Portugal and to New York. And I have enjoyed it. Really, enjoyed it. But in a glittering coffee shop on the Nevsky Prospect in St Petersburg – sipping on silver leaf tea – suddenly I craved home. I wanted nothing more than to watch over my little boy, as he sleeps. When I was pregnant, I vowed – with all sincerity – that my life ‘post baby’ wasn’t going to change. I was going to party into the wee hours of the morning – as I had always partied. I was going to travel here, there and everywhere – as I had always travelled. My spirit was free and free it would remain. I was naive. Of course – everything changed. I still travel and I’m still free, but part of me is always missing when I leave him behind. And that’s how it has been since the ‘baby’ became Aeneas. Since he first smiled. Since he called me Mamma.
It’s physical - a knot in your stomach that commands you home. Irresistible, inevitable and inescapable like Odysseus’ siren call. I miss the mundane rituals – the bedtime stories and bathtime splashes. Those humble moments which on a daily basis are more often than not overshadowed by to-do lists, by a cake in the oven or by our dog barking at the door. But when I go away – I treasure all that I have to come home to. Back in London, rediscovering the feel of my own kitchen – Aeneas once again rampaging underfoot and our dog yapping to her heart’s content – I baked an old favourite. This meringue folly topped with lightly whipped cream and an explosion of technicolour summer berries - halfway between a pavlova, with a sugar crisp exterior, and a marshmallow of sorts, soft and melting in the middle. You bake the egg whites in a piping hot oven for a few minutes only, then turn off the heat and leave it to cook gently, gently overnight. I topped it all with with some heady thyme from the little bush growing in our herb garden. Heavenly – it cries out summer and it tastes like home.