New Growth and Dead Ends

SATURDAY

Late afternoon, after short unproductive time at the allotment, tying up the broad beans, we walk in Ashcombe Woods outside Exeter.

Everything is new growth and green.....but I'm fighting myself all the way....prickly and sharp as pine needles....irritated with my husband.....explaining where Lyme Regis is for the hundredth time.....longing for him to remember when he absolutely can't.....annoyed by all the dog shit on the path.

SUNDAY

I pack a boiled egg and salad  picnic and we drive the hour and a half into Cornwall to the National Trust's Lanhydrock  - huge Victorian house and grounds outside Bodmin. Watched by this cow as we walk up the long avenue to the house, remembering the last time we were  here on my 61st birthday last October.

 After our picnic on very wet grass we wander around the gardens.The Laburnum trees are in full hanging bloom - I can't see one without thinking about the one my father planted in their front garden in Honiton when my mother was still alive.

I think these are pink campion or ragged robin....wish I knew more about wild flowers  - I love the delicate abandonment of them.....

And I love the boldness and sweet friendliness of Robins...this one hopping round the poppies...

No idea what this exotic bloom is...its leaves as big as oval serving plates....

Most of the Rhododendrons are over except this gorgeous peaches and cream one.

Another unknown exotic .....

Georgia O'keefe poppy.....

My husband's  lemon curd (on top) and blackcurrant and clotted cream ice cream which we ate outside the cafe before we began the  nearly 2 mile walk back to the car. I'm joining him in his current obsession with ice cream and now my jeans are getting too tight again.....also I'm prowling round the kitchen cupboards late at night ..... an old habit of searching for comfort where there is none....

This bowl in the wonderful Victorian kitchen .....with instructions on how they used to make clotted cream...

Can't avoid poppies and the 100th anniversary of the first world war this year.....

TODAY

I'm getting ready for my sister's 65th birthday -  making garlic bread for her lunch on Saturday.....

The fridge is full of Russian kale and lots of green goodness but I make supper mostly out of the store cupboard  - an omelette of spring onions, sweetcorn and smoked salmon with a tomato and pak choi salad and half a loaf of garlic bread I found in the freezer.  I don't feel like being healthy tonight - I'm in mourning - had a brutal hair cut this afternoon....in loss and shock...I said I want it a bit shorter - not shorn.....not above my ears.... On the way home I cry in the car for the nakedness of my neck....

At least hair grows back....I want to believe that brain cells will grow back  - find new pathways -  but tonight I only find rocks in the way ....and dead ends.