Letting Him Breathe

Easter Monday  morning strolling through Northernhay Gardens in Exeter,

longing to feel some of her exuberant joy and freedom but instead feeling irritated, distracted and hot.

Back home we make Anzac biscuits together ......I'm worried all the  little seedlings my sister planted for us at the allotment will be dying in the heat....I haven't got time to go down as our friends are coming to tea ......I ask my husband if he'll water them but he says no and retires to bed. Maybe it's just too painful for him to be reminded of what he used to be able to do....

Later under the shade of the garden umbrella we have tea on the patio for the first time this year and  my husband blows out the candles on his already-cut-into birthday cake  - 8 candles to symbolise his 62nd year.

Yesterday afternoon I worked in the allotment alongside our gardener in one of the raised beds, yanking up the triffid roots of couch grass strangling the mass of strawberry plants which probably need to be abandoned anyway as they are old and tired and not producing berries now.

In the evening, sitting on the sofa, watching Masterchef on iplayer, I suddenly noticed my right hand and how the top joint of my middle finger was bent to the right. Distinctly crooked.  A bit swollen. So it's happened then.....arthritis ....the hand I've known all my life is different. It's been hurting for ages but somehow I didn't think it would actually change shape - wouldn't happen to me.

Today, in the safe and gentle space of my coaching session I learned that trying to control my husband's eating habits is actually stopping love being present at the table. So the other day at lunchtime when I tried to take the jar of mayonnaise away from my husband to stop him spooning any more onto his salad, and it got smeared  everywhere instead,  he was upset and I was upset with myself for losing it - love could not be present in that moment - for him or for me.

Just something to notice not something to beat myself up for. Something to untangle -  like couch grass round a strawberry plant - letting him breathe without me - freeing us both.