The true colour of emerald broad beans
shrugged out of their jackets.
The first strawberry...
Summer vanished today behind a duvet of grey cloud and spitty rain. Too cold for our usual salad lunch. Found a Thai fish curry in the freezer - stretched it with prawns, last night’s garlicky tomato sauce and more coconut and had it with nutty brown rice and the first of our broad beans which my husband shelled. I love the way they snap out of their little sage grey jackets and reveal their true shining emerald greeness inside.
And for pudding - our first strawberries - still a bit pale - needing just one more day of sunshine. In the absence of cream my husband pours on a soya custard. He doesn’t recognise the pink elderflower cordial in the fridge or remember its flavour. I explain it’s a drink to be diluted with fizzy water. It’s all new to him this idea. But as the strawberries are not very sweet I dribble some cordial over them which he mixes with the custard and says it’s really really nice.
Later we walk miles along the river bank, a sharp wind bending tall cow parsley stems almost to the ground. For ten minutes we walk in silence practising our Minfulness homework, practising being totally present and just paying attention to whatever is going on inside and outside. I notice how much my right shoulder aches from yesterday’s yoga poses, how the tip of my fourth toe rubs against the leather of my shoe, how I start thinking about my mother, how cold my hands are, how shiny are the ivy leaves winding up the bark of that oak tree....
And I notice how friendly it is to walk with my husband without talking. Without those tricky words coming between us. Like shrugging off a stiff broad bean skin.... taking one clear emerald step at a time...
And this quote from John Kabat -Zinn .....
The easiest way to relax is to stop trying to make things different. Struggle comes from not accepting what is present.
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