Curdling

The colours of hot....  in the garden -  patio geranium and pelargonium.

The colours of hot.....homegrown apricots and tomatoes by our friends in New Zealand.

The colours of hot - the first brandy wine tomatoes from the farmers' market.

Which I chopped up for our salad supper tonight with loads of basil - heating up in their pots on the kitchen window sill.

The redcurrant tart experiment....

leaking red juice....curdling the custard.

Late morning  - arrive home from lovely tea on cool terrace with friend -  to wet mopped floors and smell of furniture polish - love having my house cleaned by someone else.

Late afternoon -  sit in stationary Friday traffic on industrial estate on way to collect husband's mended alloy wheel - sun scorching through windscreen - decide to be grateful for slight breeze coming through open window instead of being irritable and grumpy.

Early evening -  make rich sweet pate sucre for redcurrant tart base to take to family gathering tomorrow  - to celebrate my nearly one-hundred-and-one year old aunty. Everything to do with pastry making should be cold. I chill it in the fridge -  try rolling it out in the boiling hot kitchen with the sun pouring onto the work surface. It turns into floppy sheet of glue. I haul it into the tart case in a broken mess -  press and patch it into shape and put it back in the fridge for tomorrow.

Haven't made a redcurrant tart before so decide to use left over pastry trimmings to make a mini trial version. Good job I do. As usual I adjust the recipe but the fruit leaks red juice and curdles the custard. It looks a bit pink insipid when it's cooked so sprinkle it with sugar and brûlée it under the grill. ....but it burns the pasty edge before the sugar melts into a glaze.  Will make more adjustments tomorrow.

I say to my husband, 

My tart didn't work.

Is that why you're tired? he asks.

I realise he means the homeopathic tablet I took this morning....if he doesn't know what a tart is - even though it's sitting cooling on the counter in front of him -  he has to try and guess what I mean and what he comes up with is that my pill didn't work.....

 He can't tell me what he had for lunch today when he was out with my brother-in-law - something with cheese. But fortunately he really enjoys my cobbled together, leaky, redcurrant tart which we have for supper. And it doesn't matter that he can't remember the words for tart or pastry or custard.

 But it matters to me - the emptiness of our talk now - as the meaning of words drains away from him - curdling my world.