The Scales Are Balanced

It's all about the snow tonight. The poor birds must be shivering.

 Hard to believe that it was like this yesterday afternoon, the light covering of snow nearly all melted

 in the fields and hedgerows on my walk up the hill,

bright but very cold. I stopped for a few minutes to listen to the absolute silence,

which was suddenly broken by the harsh cawing of these two crows in a tree behind me.

It was so good to be walking again after an enforced break....so as not to disturb the wounds in my leg....they ache but no damage done.

This morning at first light....

 a heavy frost, lying in a crunchy icy layer over the grass in the field and in my garden.

The sun quickly disappeared,

and I ventured out for a  coffee with a dear friend and to buy purple sprouting broccoli, leeks, carrots and eggs at the organic farmers' market in Exeter,

which was eerily quiet,

the streets almost deserted,

with a feeling of anticipation....slight anxiety in the air ...people wanting to pack up and get home before the whirlwind of snow blew in which was forecast for the South West this afternoon

.

 I wanted to get home too.... but after a detour to the garden centre to buy more bird supplies...I didn't quite make it and 

I had to sweep out the ashes in the grate - which I was supposed to do yesterday but forgot -  take them to the compost bin at the end of the garden and make several trips to the log pile in the mower garage, all in slashing sleet and biting wind.

 I so longed for Robin to be here and do it all for me... all that strong man stuff he used to do...then I remembered he couldn't carry anything heavier than a plate and then not even that....

I was glad I did it though and loved feeding the fire all night in the sitting room while the snow blew in on the  north wind.

It has settled in a thick icing sugar layer over the bird baths and the pots.

I'm so grateful that I'm not stuck sitting in my car on Telegraph Hill on the A38 or that I have to cancel travel plans for tomorrow.

And this evening, after emailing a dear friend who, like me, is bereaved in the loss of her home, I remembered that  it's totally possible to hold two opposing feelings at the same time....that one doesn't cancel out the other.

I'm so grateful for all the good and wonder in my life

AND,

I'm totally lost and bereft as well.

Sometimes I feel guilty ....to still have so much, to be so blessed  - I have a home ( whatever I feel about it  - I still have somewhere to live) and dearly beloveds all around me....and yet to be so desolate ...seems somehow churlish.

But both are true.

 I'm grateful and I'm unhinged by grief.

 The scales are balanced.

For now.

Snowfall... Jet Stream of Dreams .. At the Kitchen Sink....Busy Hands.....Idle Heart

I wake from bad dreams to light fluttering snow

 and frozen water in the bird baths .

My day ahead is full of non-urgent things to do, so while the kettle is boiling

I stand at the sink in my dressing gown and watch the slushy snow falling on the grass, from the white blanket of the sky.

 I'm still in the jet stream wash of my disturbing dreams...

 In my dream I was having a pre- theatre meal with a friend....I fell deeply asleep at the table and woke to find my open handbag on the floor.... my purse and phone stolen.... and my friend gone. I was sure I had been drugged....I found the case of my phone by my feet, hopeful  it might still be there... but it really was gone...and I'd missed the whole performance of the play . I went to the bar to ask about my friend ....no-one knew anything... ..and then I saw her and she was wearing odd clothes... but she wouldn't speak to me....and  all I could think was how am I going to replace all my contacts on my phone? And my bank cards?

This feeling of utter loss and abandonment stains my thoughts as I stand at the sink...weakens my resolve for my no appointments or nothing-urgent-or-important-to-do day.

So to stop myself dissolving, I start putting away last night's supper dishes, one at at time...and talk myself into a plan for the next half an hour...just think about that one thing to do that leads to another thing to do....

which this morning is all about the faff of having to pull OFF  my indoor boots in order to pull ON my outdoor boots.

I think about all the outdoor things I need to do so I only have to change my boots once.  Mad, I know. 

I get dressed, which demands more steely resolution than I actually have.  Just pulling on yesterday's old clothes helps  - no decisions.

 I hand wash my only cashmere jumper, which I love and which is getting all bobbly as I wear it all the time - this is leading to an outdoor thing - I need to spin-dry it in the washing machine which is in the freezing cold garage.

And I assemble on the floor by the back door a collection of outdoor things -  the kitchen compost in its compostible plastic bag - including red cabbage core, banana skins, pistachio nut shells, and some brown rice which has gone off because I cooked too much -  to go in the blue recycling bin,  a bunch of dead daffodils - their petals have turned paper thin and curled crisp at the edges, to go in the brown garden bin,  the washed peanut feeder to be filled up  - I keep the bird food in the freezing cold garage -  a creamy white pointsettia which drooped and curled up  and died in the sitting room last night - it was perfectly fine yesterday - also destined for the brown garden bin.

But before I take all that outside, in my out door boots, I get distracted and clean and scrub the sink with a wonderful all natural product, Pierre D'Agent, introduced to me by the French mother of my niece-in-law. I think it means 'silver stone'  -  it works brilliantly and makes the sink shine like nothing else does. 

All the time, while my hands are busy, I'm thinking about Robin, and how living like this - without him -  although I'm doing it because I don't know what else to do -  I feel hollow, meaningless, inside. Like my phone and my purse in my dream, he really is gone....his forever presence ...and I can't replace him or the life we would have had together.

 So I  keep my hands busy but my heart is idle, redundant, useless.   

Back at the kitchen sink, even though I'm not really hungry, I let myself think about breakfast and because there is snow on the ground I need something hot. I'm in two minds about combining fruit and grains but,

 I make  creamy porridge anyway with hazelnuts nuts and seeds - linseed, chia and pumpkin,  cinnamon stewed apples and raisins, fresh turmeric and black pepper, coconut nectar and almond milk. 

And I sit at the round table and eat it watching the birds swoop in out of the white sky and snaffle up any seeds of their own that have been left by the squirrels.

Then I pick up my idle heart and my busy hands and re-enter the non urgent fabric of my day.

Fermenting Goodness

  This morning

my sister shows me how to fill the preserving jars I bought from Lakeland ( I love that shop - all those wonderful cooking gadgets I don't need  - I should have shares in it) with the  fermenting red cabbage, carrot and fennel sauerkraut that I started the other day. And the ingenious trick of keeping the air out with a plastic bag filled with water and plopped on the surface to create a seal in the jar.

All in the good cause of supporting the delicate and recovering microbiome in my gut.

While the icy rain drenches the garden and the birds outside, we sit at the table in the warm kitchen, and she helps me to fill out a questionnaire in preparation for a Feng Shui consultation that I'm having in a few weeks ...about the house. 

I feel that it may need some energetic healing....and me too ...and some support and advice about my still uncertain plans to make it into my home.

Tricky questions to answer like:

" How would you describe your present physical, mental and emotional well being?"

Answer : Wobbly.

And

"How do you feel about your home?"

Answer : Unsettled.

And easy questions like:

"What gives you your greatest joy and support in life?"

Answer: My family and friends.

Being surrounded by beauty and nature.

And cooking for loved ones.

I've been thinking a lot about my parents recently. 

It is my turn in the family to be the guardian of three of their possessions for a while. I have known this pair of beautiful little horses, made by Wade China, all my life. I can't remember the story of them - maybe they were a wedding present -  but they have lived on every mantle piece wherever my parents lived for all of their lives.

 They aren't valuable but apart from one broken ear they are still perfect.

 As a child I had a collection of tiny Wade China animals including some Disney characters like Thumper the rabbit and  Bambi, the fawn, and a baby seal and polar bear, still in their little hat boxes. I wish I'd kept them. I'm sure you can buy them on Ebay now for a few pounds.

 But I have my parents' sweet horses instead  - a much more evocative link to my childhood... and the story of their lives.

The other link to my parents is this fine glass figurine of the Madonna which, like the pair of horses, has also lived on every mantlepiece in every house in every country they lived for as long as I can remember. And now she stands on my mantlepiece, guardian of my hearth - for now anyway -  and may be she is what I need to help me decide what to do about the fireplace.

Like my fermenting vegetables I can trust that some magic is bubbling away below the surface and all goodness will show itself when the time is right.

Underground seam of hibernation.....and more fat finch.

The High Street in Exeter this evening ....

it's rare for me to be out after 4pm these days....what with the biting cold air and my sore leg...

and low SAD energy.....and burrowing in the underground seam of hibernation ....it takes something to winkle me out.

This time  it's only because I'm desperate for a haircut...the only appointment I could get was at 5.30pm.

You are much more likely to find me in the fug of the kitchen making veggie soup,

or banana and walnut muffins ....

or experimenting with fermented vegetables....on Sunday I made a cauldron of red cabbage and 

fennel sauerkraut .....and even the heavenly perfume of a big bunch of 

narcissi on the window sill isn't disguising that strong cruciferous pong. 

 The birds are my main entertainment ....I never tire of watching them....swinging on the feeders....

or scratching in the grass among the daffodils which are shooting up all over the lawn...not many with  flowers though.

I'm probably taking too many photos of them as well.... and it wasn't till I downloaded these of 

a poor little fat chaffinch that I noticed the deformity of one of  his legs and claws and the crusting round 

his beak which I now know are all more signs of the horrible parasitic disease he has. I find it hard to bear...knowing there is nothing I can do for him.  Just hoping his life will be cut short sooner rather than later. And  I can keep cleaning that bird table till I get my pole up.