Thursday 22nd April

Day 3

Mint leaves mint leaves mint leaves

fresh picked mint leaves, in a wide mouth glass of hot water

bruised mint leaves leaking their green

and their perfume

leaving me a tea of clear emerald

to swirl with my teaspoon

and zing on my coffee tongue.

Today I sip this tea with dear friends in the clatter of a cafe. I’m there and also somewhere else as fresh mint leaves have a particular tag in my memory. Pull the tag and instantly I see a jug of straggling mint stems on a kitchen window sill. The tiny cramped kitchen is attached to a factory in a hot country where I am spending some days with aubergines and tiny brown bottles of liquid smoke flavour. Creating versions of babaganoush. Every morning they bring me a small glass too hot to touch at first - mint leaves in boiling water. It is the freshest most alive thing in my day.

That version of me then was no more successful than the babaganoush samples.

We’ve never managed to grow big healthy bushes of mint in our garden however many varieties I’ve planted. I’d like to try again though this summer. And rewrite my mint memories. Let them unravel into jugs of Pimms , and speckled bowls of tabouleh and saucepans of new potatoes turning the water emerald and zinging me to the table.