Hugs and Iceland

11th May 2011 Wednesday

The bath is run and waiting for me. I’ve been on a volcano in Iceland - the one that erupted last year and covered the world in ash - watching two lovely women on TV as they make a four day journey to the crater, which has thrown up a new black moonscape to be climbed.

A little triumph this morning - our lovely heating engineer came to fix the squeaking downstairs loo and after a while it looked like we would need a whole new cistern. Then I found a receipt in a fat file of all the work we had done on the house seven years ago with the name of the Armitage Shanks loo on it. So now we may only need the ball cock thing and not a whole new loo after all. I didn’t even know I’d kept it - let alone where to find the house file.

A dear friend visits us - she has just found out about my husband’s brain disease. She offers her support, gives us big warm hugs. Later she emails and says we all need at least five hugs a day. I think that’s what keeps us alive - more than the government’s five fruit and veg.

This evening my husband is very low and quiet after his healing session, so I decide not to go out for a meal with my two dear cinema going companions after seeing the film at the Odeon. I poach the latest bunch of asparagus from the allotment instead and scramble eggs which we eat while immersed in the dramatic beauty of Iceland. My husband is enthralled and moved by this landscape. I find it bleak and desolate - like a cooling bath.