Christmas Feasting/Remembering Love

Christmas Day lunch table....Pointsettia and crossed red ribbons ( symbolising my grandmother's wedding bouquet and their first Christmas in China). In foreground my Wild Mushroom Nut Roast. And my nephew's Roast Potatoes which made my day and which I pigged-out on...those and my sister's Christmas Pudding - the best I've ever eaten....

My Last Minute Christmas Crown Cake.....left it too late to make my usual cake - this is a lighter, less fruit, doesn't-keep-so-long cake. I found it disappointing but my tiny, delicate great-niece approved -  a  surprise to her mother as she doesn't normally eat cake....

Unseasonal Asparagus Tart for Boxing Day which went down well with the Armenian branch of my husband's family at his Aunty's home....

New Year's Eve brunch in the lovely home of dear friends - keeping up our favourite tradition.

One of the precious little people we spent our Christmas with....my husband struggled to read her a Ladybird book of Winnie The Pooh but she didn't seem to mind. He said the best thing was being with the children as they don't talk very much or if they do he can understand them. And they love him unconditionally.

I expect the very new little person who arrived 3 days ago will in time also find that she loves him - our sweet great-niece - bringing her own joy to our world.

Now it's a week into another year.....and Christmas seems like another country ago.

Today we sit in the office of our young Clinical Psychologist, (he of the kind eyes, the drainpipe trousers and shoes that we used to know as winkle pickers) who believes that our love for each other will see us through this lightless tunnel.

When we argue in front of him, disagree about the facts of what happened, about the size of a glass, about what I did or didn't say to my father, about how much is enough, about who is right...he says things like, 

It's hard to get to the truth of facts as they are really perceptions, but somewhere in it all is an emotional truth which is probably more important to find.

I've been wondering what that is .....buried deep beyond my fear and shame, my rage and hopelessness.....a memory of love.

Yesterday I read this Robert Holden quote which gives me an access to that.....

This hurry and busyness are not your real life.

Your real life is in the spaces between that.

It is here that you connect to what truly inspires you.

Making spaces to remember love - feels like my greatest challenge yet - a thousand guilt habits to hurdle first.