A Gazebo for a Daschund

4th June 2011 Saturday

Listening to the radio this morning at breakfast - the interviewer, talking about pet accessories, says,

‘You are talking to a man who once bought a gazebo for a Daschund.’

My husband says, ‘I have no idea what that sentence means’.

In the night the heads of elderflowers and sliced lemons steeping in their sugar syrup turn into a deep pink sloppy gloop. I still follow the recipe, and pour ladle after ladle into a bowl draped with a hot j-cloth and squeeze as much as I can through the mesh with my hands. It feels like milking a soft leaking heart. The liquid that seeps out is the colour of clear pink rose petals. What’s left is a mass of tiny pale stars clinging to the cloth. Although it’s more like thick syrup than cordial it tastes like the perfume of a hot summer’s day and it makes enough to fill three empty wine bottles.

I take two of them to share for supper at my sister’s. My newly retired but still working elder sister, her daughter and her two longtime friends who feel like dear family members now, are visiting for the weekend. We arrive to the smell of asparagus risotto being lovingly stirred on the stove by my nearly Italian niece and her Italian friend. She is the one who taught her, and now me, that the risotto is ready when you stir it with the wooden spoon and it’s ‘come un’onda’ - like a wave. We laugh when I remind her and she stirs the pale creamy sea in the pan but says it’s not making waves today. Still, when we sit down later, after glasses of gin and tonic and pink elderflower champagne, the risotto tastes perfect - like love on a summer’s night.

We leave early - for me - because my husband has been working on the allotment all day. And because it is very tiring for him to follow conversations now, which could be full of words like gazebo or daschund, which trip him up and leave him on the edge. His world leaking into the dark.