Oozing Away

6th August 2012

We sit at the kitchen table and I read out loud the letter for the tribunal - written by our lovely  CAB  woman - setting out the case for my husband’s appeal. So he’ll know what questions they are likely to ask him.

When I read ‘......the difficulties I have are to do with my frontal cortex degenerating’ he says,

‘I don’t know what that means.’

When I explain degenerative he seems surprised, upset - as if he didn’t realise his condition is likely to get worse. Except they said that from the beginning. Did he just forget?

He gets more and more miserable the more I read, so we leave the papers on the table and take a long walk by the river. He cheers up in the clean open space of the water meadows and even talks about the possibility of painting the clouds.

My version of cloud painting is to cook. I cut carrots, beetroots, potatoes, red onions and elephant garlic into wedges and roast them olive oil. We eat them with allotment beans and spinach sprinkled with walnuts and green herb dressing. I let the tribunal letter ooze away into the air of my fragrant kitchen.

Later I’m inspired by a Horizon programme about diet and fasting and aging - including an interview with a hundred and one year old man who ran the London Marathon in seven and a half hours and who only eats child sized portions of Punjabi food.

I think I need to do more exercise......and eat like a mouse....