Sunday 26th April

Day 6

We are a company of women in a warm room full of light, wrapped round by a wide garden bordered by tall trees and candy pink camellia blooms lying in heaps on the grass.

I feel safe in this circle. The lines round our eyes, on our faces, tell our stories. Our heads turn to the one who speaks. We offer each other the things we know - the things we’ve learned, the things that heal. We are like those women in the past who used scraps of discarded cloth to make a quilt and sewed their lives together at the same time. You can’t see the quilt in this room full of light but we are stitching anyway, woven together by the love of a book and our hearts’ longing for it’s truth.

And because we are women we carry today’s tapestry to the table, anointed with a candle and camelia flowers, and we keep weaving over the jewelled dishes we have brought to share.Wilted spinach in the coconut soup, walnuts and thyme in the soda bread, tomatoes and mushrooms in the couscous, sweet corn and fennel in the salad. A mustard dressing to drizzle and cloudy apple juice to drink. Orange stained fingers from the skins of clementines to perfume the car on the way home. I feel so thankful and nourished, so soul fed.

My lovely man is coming home with a gift of asparagus from an allotment neighbour - so that’s supper then - only some garlic mayonnaise to whisk up and maybe a boiled egg or two.....

And tomorrow we will be 3 sisters on a journey - a delicious present to unwrap - soul food in Cornwall for 2 precious days.