Birthday Pictures

 My birthday morning in the harbour at Dartmouth - the steam train beyond,

rain clouds gathering over the estuary.....

sun shining after the downpour.....after our mediocre lunch...

another day we'll take this ferry to the other side....

I want to stay and walk by the water but my husband wants to go home.

While he sleeps late into the afternoon I take my camera - his birthday present to me - to the University Park,

and find reflections in the pond....

pink grasses that look like newly permed hair...

scavenging crows in the fields...

and the last clinging leaves....fluttering their silver underbellies to the sky.

Yesterday, I waded  though my day in a tidal wave of tiredness and  sudden tears...thinking maybe it's me that needs anti-depressants.. couldn't face the thought of writing a blog.... or taking  another photo.... or cooking another meal.

Today, I'm showered with birthday love - cards and presents, texts and emails and messages and kindness.

Today, I let it drain away  -  disappointment about my horrible lunch -   almost fish-free gluggy Smoked Haddock chowder in the Angel Restaurant....

and make up for it with hot coffee and a  thin slab of fudgey chocolate brownie at the Arts Centre Cafe.

Today, although it takes a little while, I let it dissolve - all that blame - my longing to walk as far as I can in the sunshine and wind along the harbour quay on my birthday - knowing my husband needs to rest, knowing it's not his fault.... and we have to go home.

And I find a way to paint different birthday pictures...rain and sun included...... and cook us my favourite supper....grilled asparagus, long stems of purple sprouting broccoli, poached eggs and homemade garlic mayonnaise....and it doesn't matter when my husband says What's garlic? 

Because that's just how it is now - on birthdays and every other day.