Brave Bluebell

Sunday 10th April

Day 354

6.30 pm. We lie next to each other on the bed stretched out in a sunburnt stupor. It’s still warm and bright outside, birds singing.

‘I don’t know why I’m so knackered,’ says my husband, his eyes closing.

I can think of several reasons. We just walked about five miles in the beautiful Blackdown Hills with a group of lovely friends - through fields and woods and lanes, bright with hawthorne blossom, huge dandelions and fragile bluebells. The sun bearing down on us all the way, hot as August.

Then lunch in a friend’s quaint cottage - her table laden with the dishes and bowls we brought from our homes - a venison stew, a chicken korma, a leek quiche, buttery potatoes, peppery salads and a brazil nut roast. We flowed out into the garden and stayed long into the afternoon, finishing up with an apple and pear pavlova, a bread and butter pudding, a fruit jelly, a chocolate hazelnut roulade.

You could call it a full and happy tiredness.

Later an old and dear friend rings for a chat. Each day is an ordeal for her as she struggles with the demons of depression. She says the good coming out of it is that she is learning a new compassion. I look it up in the dictionary - compassion -

‘a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress with a desire to alleviate it’.

She touches me so much. I think of her like a brave, tender bluebell in the shade - pointing to the light.