Lost Love

19th August 2012 Sunday

A hot restless night, lying awake at 4am and then a haunting dream which stays with me - flitting in and out of my day like a will-o-the-wisp.....a Brief Encounter, lost love kind of dream. It leaves me in a ‘I want to be alone, Greta Garbo’ mood all day - luckliy our planned trip to see my husband’s family in Exmouth is postponed.

I feed spinach leaves, carrots, celery, ginger root, lemons, apples, peppers and cucumber through the funnel of the juicer and then blend it with avocado and spirulina powder to make a murky but sparky glass of breakfast. I drink it slowly while my husband slathers plum jam onto his croissants - or courgettes as he calls them.

By mid afternoon I’m hungry but we drive out to Killerton House for a walk. Too many people for me and children and dogs and cars. My husband buys a big vanilla ice cream cone and I decline his offer of a lick - wanting to keep up my semi- fasting day.  I feel grumpy and thwarted when we can’t walk round the grounds of the house without paying  -  it’s a National Trust property so fair enough -  and we take a tussocky route through a field full of cows and their poo instead. We pass by a game of cricket - the men in their whites, the spectators clapping, the sound of the ball thwacking the bat taking me back to my schoolgirl summers in Oxford....and my first love.

All the windows are open in the house but the air is sticky and still. Later we have a bowl of last night’s supper re-heated and a game of scrabble while the pussy cat curls between us on the sofa, dreaming -  a small soft pillow of bones.