It Would Be Perfect If.....

Flowers of my African childhood - also found all over the world.....

Frangipani -  Botanical Gardens in Singapore,

also in Singapore....but I don't remember this deep rose pink variety in Zambia.

Frangipani - Madeira - we had a tree like this in the  front garden of the house in Lusaka where I grew up.

A bowlful of Frangipani flowers in the centre of the table in the restaurant in Madeira with the bottle of champagne we drank on the night of our 25th wedding anniversary.

Lantana - Portugal - I can conjure up the hot peppery perfume of the leaves in my memory in an instant.

Hibiscus - South Africa - in the garden of my grandfather's house in Knysna - which we revisited in January 2012 - in the weeks after my father died.

Hibiscus  - Madiera - we had a huge hedge of this starting at the back door of our house .....I remember my first pussy cat climbing up inside its branches...

 In the kitchen tonight - the last flower on the hibiscus plant -  a birthday present from 2 dear friends a couple of years ago...and the Lemon Almond and Honey cake I baked this afternoon.

The cake is for lunch on Saturday for a bit of an African childhood  re-union. My big sister is coming to stay for the weekend and we have invited two old friends - two sisters whom we grew up, went to school with, who lived in the same road as us and whose lives have been entwined with our family's for ever...even though one now lives in Canada and the other in Zimbabwe.

So I was thinking about them, and our connection while I cooked my cake in the kitchen with the doors and windows wide open onto the garden - the sun baking down on the grass and on the begonias and geraniums in their pots.

And I was thinking how much I love this summer - this almost African heat which always lies dormant in my bones and which wakes me up, zinging as lemon zest, on a day like today.

And I was thinking how perfect it was - this moment in the sun-filled kitchen feeling alive, baking my cake....and then I thought,

It would be perfect if my husband wasn't ill.

But I know that's not true....I want to find a way to be happy....with all of it. Nelson Mandela's prison cell didn't stop him....

And this Rumi quote keeps coming to me...

"Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make sense any more."