The First Asparagus......

Some firsts today - 

1. My husband brings back the first four long bright wands of asparagus, purple tipped with soil clinging to their woody white ends.....I’m thrilled at how sweet they taste compared to the bunch I bought on special offer in Sainsbury’s the other day. As there are only four I eke out our lunch with green brushes of sprouting broccoli to dip into soft boiled eggs and a garlicky sesame dressing as well ( which just about slips into the category of hollandaise or butter - but not really). And two slices of my Oaty Seedy Bread  - the hemp seeds jump out under the grill when I toast it....

2.We have lunch outside on the patio - the sun bouncing off the white plastic table top - making me go inside for sunglasses to shield the glare.I think this is our first lunch in the garden this year.....the first really hot one anyway....

.

3. My first sight of open bluebells in the hedgerow on our walk above the River Otter this afternoon....and noticing the tiny violets hiding in the grass..... and is that white lacey froth wild carrot or cow parsley?.....wishing I knew more names of wild flowers - I love them so much - they feel like delicate, vulnerable companions along our route to the bridge across the river....

4.Not for the first time I’m glad I accepted my husband’s invitation to walk with him when in the past I would have declined as I already had my day full to the brim with THINGS TO DO.....but then I would have missed the swan who looked like he was posing for me - treading water .....but really he was waiting for his mate who was dawdling in the reeds....taking her time....knowing he'd always be there......

Phone Death

I’m grieving for my mobile phone. I’ve had it since 2009. It died on Friday taking with it most of my contact numbers and the familiar way I had of using it. The sweet young man in the Vodaphone shop showed me how to use the replacement one  - you have to touch the screen instead of the keys to make it work and most things are different - like where the space key is.....and my fingers are big and clumsy on the little pad. When I tried to send my first text it took me so long that I wanted to throw it out of the window.

I don’t want to learn a whole new way of how to communicate with my loved ones. I don’t want to take the time and trouble to read the manual. To understand it and practise it. I loved my old phone. I knew how to make it work. I want it back.

Like my old life. I don’t know how to do this new one.......how to swim between the sharks and the icebergs.

Maybe I could listen to my husband. On Saturday afternoon I leave my undiscovered phone at home and we walk by the river in and out of icy shade and bright sun. But I haven’t really left the phone at home and I’m swamped by loss, frustration. My husband is patient and understanding and doesn’t make me wrong. He says sorry a lot even though it’s not his fault. After a while he says the thing he always says,

We could just be here now and have a day of joy by living out of our hearts.

He’s right of course. While I’m having my tantrum about the phone I don’t see the white sprays of hawthorn blossom, or the yellow coconutty gorse flowers, or smell the wild garlic growing all along the path, or hear the crows squabbling in the branches of the beech trees above us. Or notice that my old life and my new life are the same - it’s just me that’s stopping me from loving it - waiting for icebergs....missing the joy....

Still pressing the old buttons  - not stroking the screen where the light is....

An Aunty's Lunch

 Chocolate-free Fruit and Nut Truffles

My husband’s aunty who is 85 and very spry comes for a birthday lunch. She’s a pleasure to cook for as she loves vegetables and doesn’t mind not having pudding. So she fits perfectly into our current eating regimen.We sit on our small patio among the pots of daffodils and tulips, drinking apple juice. When it clouds over and the temperature drops a bit we come inside.

I serve lemon baked fillets of seabass, an emerald green salsa verde but made with parsley and coriander instead of basil, roasted aubergines, red onions and peppers, a bowl of tender purple sprouting broccoli and soft spears of asparagus, and cubes of butternut squash flecked with nibs of red chilli ( thank you Paul Hollywood for that recipe).

For afters, with her camomile tea, we have a plate of my Fruit and Nut Truffles  - just almonds and sunflower seeds, raisins, dried apricots and lemon juice -  ( no chocolate, cream or sugar in sight) rolled in coconut shreds accompanied by sprigs of crisp grapes.  She brings a bag of caramelised peanuts from her recent trip to Seville which my husband loves and which aren’t allowed on our diet -  but since it’s a special occasion...

Before she leaves she says she notices a difference in my husband but doesn’t have a chance to say what. I’ve been noticing it for a few weeks now - just a slight shift, missing more words, more meanings.....

Later, when I take back the packets of jumbo oats and the sunflower seeds that my husband bought at Waitrose a few weeks ago, the nice woman serving me says,

Oh, I remember your husband. It was a while ago. I helped him find the oats. Are they no good?

I explain about jumbo and porridge and why he wouldn’t know that jumbo means big and porridge means small. But I’m really impressed and touched that she remembers him...like belonging to a community. Makes me want to shop at Waitrose all the time.....

(No blog tomorrow - on a gardening mission at my big sister’s....)

Tired Of Being Good

In the garden this evening just before the poplar tree stole the sun away....

I just deleted the blog I wrote half an hour ago as I was  bored with it - and me. Susannah Conway says in her wonderful course, Blogging From The Heart, if you are stuck ask yourself what are you really trying to say.

Well what I want to say is that today I’m tired of being good - tired of walking on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting ( from Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese).

It’s the 3rd week of our de-tox diet and I’m weary of the alternatives to butter and sugar and milk and tea and bread. We are having these absolutely fantactic meals bursting with goodness - loads of  fresh fish and eggs and salads and every veggie under the sun and nuts and seeds and a bit of fruit and the Oaty Seedy Loaf and my own homemade almond and apricot and sesame bars for treats....... and I'm feeling better for it.....AND....and today I wanted to throw in the towel....

I’m not craving chocolate or crisps or cake or Gin  ( but I do miss olive oil dressings) in fact I’m not  really wanting food at all..... so I’m not sure what’s the matter..... maybe just a surfeit of the trying too hard to get it right and forgetting to love the little things right in front of my face....and anyway I’m tired of trying to work it out....

It was a beautiful day today, my husband out for most of it. It's  what I relish - a home-alone day - but instead of being out in the sunshine in the garden I stayed mostly at my desk....noticing how as soon as I get what I want I don’t appreciate it.....

Walking past the high walls and coils of barbed wire at Exeter prison this afternoon on the way to my Chiropractic appointment I tried to imagine what it must be like to be locked away and not be able to step into the sunshine whenever you want or even choose not to. Like I did today - careless, taking my freedom for granted. Knowing I could make a different choice tomorrow....

I think I might go and throw some towels now....not having said what I wanted at all...

Expired Inspired

Burgh Island, Bigbury on Sea where we walked in heavenly sunshine on Saturday with my cousins....and where we spent the night of our 20th Wedding Anniversary when we believed life would only get better....

Seaweed on the beach where we ate our picnic lunch.....

Last night's supper - haddock from the market fishmonger - packed with fishy flavour.....

A quick supper this evening as my husband is going to sing in his choir. We sit opposite each other - I  always face the garden and have a view of long armed daffodils in their pots and the green cupped heads of my birthday tulips showing delicate slits of red petticoat petals. We are eating a mushroom and prawn omlette except it might as well just be a mushroom one as the prawns have no flavour at all. The price of trying to save money on food. I knew it was a mistake.

My husband says, referring to his choir,

I hope I’ll be expired tonight.

I hope you won’t, I say.

I don’t mean that, what do I mean?

Inspired. Otherwise you’d be dead, I say.

I’m not ready for that, he says.

Me neither.

Friday Afternoon

Buds at Dunster Castle...

 Eggy Picnic  - you can't see how windy it was....

Don't know the name but love it....

Camellia

More Magnolias

I’m sitting in my friend’s hot car with her brown and white spotted pointer dog being very well behaved in the back.  She has brought me back to my car after our walk and lunch ( warm barley salad - with rocket and silky mushrooms) at the Boston Tea Party in Honiton and we are hovering in the car park - reluctant to end our conversation. When my mobile rings it’s my husband to say the electrician has arrived to mend the hob - thank goodness.

Last night my husband let the poached eggs boil over and then I flooded the top by trying to get the burnt on sticky stuff off the rings.....water seeped into the electrics  - all the downstairs plugs fused... 

I’m so grateful to our lovely electrician who turned up when he was supposed to have Friday afternoon off and be fitting his water butts at home. I was feeling twitchy about the thought of not being able to cook all weekend.....not be able to steam the greens or stir fry the veggies - a mainstay of my day....

Even though all is well in the kitchen now when it came time to make supper I was overwhelmed by tiredness and a sneaky I don’t feel like it thought took over....so I asked my husband to go out and bring us back fish and chips.....

Mushroom and Magnolia

www.binhamgrange.co.uk/

16th April 2013

We are sitting at a beautifully laid table in a sixteenth century farmhouse with the sun pouring in and a log fire in the hearth, tucking into fresh fruit salad and granola. In the end I give up trying to find ways to describe a mushroom and we both decide it’s best to wait till my my husband’s cooked breakfast arrives. As soon as he sees the glistening slices next to the poached eggs and the grilled tomatoes he’ll say,

Oh, that’s a mushroom.

A bit later he’ll say - I know it starts with M ....it’s not mayonnaise is it?

Today each and every mushroom moment feels like mountain climbing with the summit forever disappearing behind clouds....

On the other hand, yesterday I slept in the most comfortable bed ever, ate the best warm and tender scones ever and was gifted with a view of the most wonderful Magnolia tree in full bloom outside our bedroom window and felt nourished in luxury.

I can wholeheartedly recommend dinner bed and breakfast at Binham Grange on the edges of Exmoor in North Somerset for a dip into indulgence and pampering....

www.binhamgrange.co.uk/

Knocking Out The Bubbles

16th April 2013

I’m picking off the best leaves from a clump of perpetual spinach at the allotment. It’s a soft, warm spring afternoon. My husband is watching me.

‘Why don’t you do some weeding? I say.

‘No, I don’t feel like it,’ he says.

I put the spinach down and walk past the beds of sprouting garlic towards the shed. It’s my version of taking 3 breaths before I open my mouth. But it doesn’t really work and my resentment bubbles away like fermenting yeast in a ball of dough.

Later, after some sister listening on the phone, I realise that my husband is just speaking for me, saying what I want to say and can’t. In my obsessive, driven, must-do world there is no room for not feeling like it - you have to do it anyway.

So I take a leaf out of his book, put an Oaty Seedy Loaf to bake in the oven, and with the sun shining outside, the daisies mulitplying in the lawn, my emails unread and unanswered I watch blue-eyed Paul Hollywood, in his crisp blue striped shirt, making all versions of soda bread, crumpets and gingerbread  -  mixing and kneading the dough.

Knocking out the bubbles, letting in the air.

(No blog tomorrow - going away with my husband for a night and a day to a lovely country hotel - an unspent 25th wedding anniversary gift from my dear family...)

Grateful for Orange Peppers

Raw Cashew Dreamcake - mynewroots.org (on my rose plate)

My husband comes back from the healthfood shop and Waitrose. He buys everything on the list..... except the peppers are orange not red ( They are red, he says)..... and the oats are large not small because he doesn’t know what jumbo means..... and the sunflower seeds are the small, expensive packets from Waitrose not the big bag from the healthfood shop ( I thought I’d said) .

I’m cross, he’s upset - little boy upset. I feel mortified and guilty. I say sorry sorry....

Moral of story - be specifc, much much more specific.... assume nothing....... give up attachment to colour of peppers and size of oats....... take three gigantic breaths before opening mouth and before opening shopping bag.....forgive self for over-reacting.... start taking care of needy little girl inside me, afraid of getting it wrong, desperate for approval..... stop worrying about money in the future......be much much more grateful for husband going shopping anyway when I don't have time/inclination....... and that he can still drive......and that we have such a benediction of love and support in our lives.....

And this weekend I was so grateful to be in the company of my cousin whose cancer is in remission for now and he doesn’t need sticks to walk. He and his partner are vegan to support his healing..... this was the dessert I made for them and my sisters and brother-in-law on Saturday......with the addition of some orange zest (of course) and more raspberries than in the recipe. Thank you Sarah Britton at mynewroots for Raw Cashew Dreamcake.

I’m so grateful.

                                  

Living Growing Colours

12 April 2013 

I’m making tomorrow’s lunch and tonight’s supper at the same time. The kitchen is flooded with evening sunlight - so everything looks bright and dusty. I notice  smears and finger marks on all the windows and the cooker and cabinet doors. I cant remember the last time we had sun in the house. Or when I last cleaned it properly.

But what matters isn’t my grubby kitchen but the colour of my glossy red pepper and chilli sauce which is deep paprika red and which shimmers in the light and makes me think of hot African deserts and ochre face paint on wild dancing tribespeople. I’m keeping this sauce for tomorrow’s Brazilnut Roast when my family come to lunch but I think it would team up well for another occasion with my Oaty Seedy Bread ( cf Sarah Britton’s Life Changing Loaf) and my green corainder houmous. Red and green and brown  - living, growing colours......

This afternoon my red coated aunty who will be 100 years old soon, and her eldest daughter, came to tea. Yesterday I spent time with my father’s cousin who is 88 and her partner who is 94. They are all bright and spry and funny and alert ..... and also slow and forgetful and hurting beneath the frailness of their skin. They touch me immensely and I wonder what it is that keeps a body going so long...what desire, what spirit it must take to put the first foot out of the warmth of a bed each morning and embrace a new day....

Sticky Labels

9th April 2013

The time has come for sticky labels.

I’m showing my husband how to make our breakfast which is a green juice smoothie. He writes the list of ingredients first and then opens the fridge.

When he says Which one is the cucumber? I point it out.

When he reads a carrot on the list and picks up a banana in the fruit bowl, I say No, it’s orange.

Oh, that’s a carrot, he says, finding them in a paper bag in the fridge.

When it comes to things like Lecithin Granules and Wheat Grass Powder he writes yellow box and green bottle instead, and I make the labels for the pumpkin seeds and the sesame seeds in the jars by the cooker.

I have asked him to go shopping for me in the farmer’s market on Thursday as I’m going to be away tomorrow for 2 days and a night visiting my father's cousin. When he writes the list he makes little line drawings of a parnsnip and a mushroom and an onion next to the word. He could always draw beautifully.

We plan the menus for the meals he’ll have to make himself. There is a tin of tuna on the counter with a sticky label on which says Wednesday’s Lunch.  I’m just trusting he’ll recognise the cucumber in the fridge and the Seedy Bread to go with it. More chance now they have sticky labels on them too.

I wish there was a sticky label for a broken mind.....maybe it would say,

Love me, I’m still me.

The Blog I Lost

 8th April 2013 

Our day out at Stourhead House in Wiltshire at the weekend....

In the library at Stourhead House we learn about the man who owned the house and who wrote these books in the 1880s - Richard  Colt Hoare -  who was so grief stricken after the death of his wife and baby son and grandfather that he left his other young son to travel round Europe for 6 years. Needless to say he and his grown up son had a very 'difficult' relationship according to the letters flying between them...

The "Pope's Cabinet" - inlaid with amazing semi-precious stones and lots of secret drawers..

Chandelier....

Mallard on the lake

which my husband limped around with mysterious pains in his foot.....me taking one giant step at a time.....breathing in the beauty breathing out my unreasonable irritation......

Life Changing Loaf

Having a bad blogging night. Just deleted a post and then lost all the photos I downloaded. 

 So instead here is Sarah Britton's  website  - she of The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread. I made this loaf the other day from the Saturday Guardian Cook section and as my husband and I are on a wheat-free, all-nice-things free detox diet it's fantastic for making you feel you are still in the land of real people food. We've had it toasted too, slathered in cumin spiked hummus and it's great with boiled eggs - you don't even miss the butter. Well only a bit.

The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread | My New Roots

mynewroots.org/site/2013/02/the-life-changing-loaf-of-bread/

The Colour of Daisy Yellow

5th April 2013

I’m glad I cleaned the front door before my visitor came. She said the yellowness of it made her cheerful. It is a very bright daisy yellow and especially friendly when the sun shines which it was this morning.

She sat in the big arm chair in our sitting room with a cup of black coffee - I bathed in its aroma while I drank my black roibosh tea - and helped me to fill in a form to claim some money. It’s a wonderful scheme for carers called Take a Break - you have to spend it on yourself on things like having a massage or going away for the weekend or doing a painting course. You have to be able to say that your caring role affects your physical and emotional and mental health to make the claim. I wasn’t sure but my visitor -  who looks after many carers  - said of course it does and I should send off the form straight away.

Later I asked my husband to drive me toTKMAXX via our health food shop called Healthy Pulses and then on to The Range. After many long and repeated explanations - he does know all those shops but doesn’t retain their names or locations for more than seconds - he took all the right turns and we got there easily. 

But it makes me wonder how it’ll be for him - and me - when we have to find our way to Wellingotn or Milford Sound or Te Anau where neither of us has been. At least all the signs are in English in New Zealand and they drive on the same side of the road as us....

And I’ve got time to practise my new resolution to TRUST - the colour of happiness, the colour of daisy yellow....

Tulips and Wild

Today.....

My sister brings me a fat bunch of yellow tulips

buds still curled - 

small pointy praying hands.

She soothes the sting in my travelling fears

and I book flights to New Zealand for me and my husband
next winter.

How wild is that?

Wild and Precious?

Last night  I had a text from a friend reminding me to look at the stars  - which I had noticed on my way up the stairs as I passed the landing window - but I didn’t stop and gaze...

This morning I read Robert Holden’s daily inspiration email where he quotes Mary’s Oliver’s poem, Summer’s Day ‘What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ 

It stays with me all day - this unanswerable question ....

as I hang my powder blue pashmina on the line and it flaps in the wind and the sun like a huge flag announcing a truce on winter.....

as I make yet another long TO DO LIST in purple ink....and wonder if I’ll ever get to the end....

as I heave the vacuum cleaner up to the top of the stairs......

as I cut the heads off two frozen sea bass and try not to retch......

as I carry out two cups of tea for the men on the scaffolding tower outside the front of our house.....

as I explain to my husband that he can’t eat any more dried figs on our detox diet.....

I notice that I have forgotten how savour the moments of my life - however mundane - and how wild and precious feels like someone else’s life - never mine.....

Spring and Panicking

Snakeshead.....

crocus....

Dartington....

A Henry Moore....

This is a 10 minute blog as I promised my husband I’d come to bed....soon.

We didn’t start our detox diet as we were invited to lunch by a dear friend who fed us a rich red tomato and lentil soup and cheese scones with melted butter..... followed by a mincemeat frangipane tart and custard....

Afterwards we walked in the gorgeous peaceful gardens of Dartington Hall under giant knarled trees and in warm sunshine  -  it felt like a spring was whispering round every corner we turned....

And all day I’ve been irritable and tired, waspish and tearful, panicking about money ....now my head is aching and my skin feels as tender as cobwebs.....

A Cold Easter Monday

We plan to do gardening today - cut the hedge, weed the allotment  - but can’t face it when stepping outside I feel the raw cut of the wind on my skin.

We head for the sea instead. Lyme Regis is throng with Easter Monday crowds - queues straggling out of our favourite cafe -  so we end up sharing our vegetable and chick pea pasties with the seagulls on the sloping pebble beach, our backs to the icy wind.

Walking back following the sound of the river, we stop to pick wild garlic leaves which make the car smell all the way home and I decide to add them to a lemony dressing for our supper of grilled salmon fillets and spring greens. I find I’m craving fresh green things after this weekend’s birthday cakes and chocolates and my husband’s dwindling stash of biscuits.

At home I light the gas fire in the sitting room and we play a game of scrabble. I win by one point - but the score doesn't matter - it's extraordinary to me that my husband plays at all  - he looks up every word, mostly doesn't know what they mean -  but it's something we do together....to pass the time.  

I’m feeling ready to start our detox diet tomorrow, but not sure how I’m going to keep warm without the comfort of tea....which is only a thought.....I could start to really like black Roibosh if I drink enough of it.....