Sunset Tomato Sauce and Worrying

A gift of huge squat green onions from my sister.  I chopped this one up tonight, threw it in a pan with olive oil and minced garlic....... 

sliced up some of these greenhouse tomatoes that Robin brought back from the allotment.....

along with some from the market - the giant orange Brandy Wine variety -  heavy handfuls of sweetness......

and let them all cook down with lots of vegetable bouillion into a chunky sauce.....

a glorious sunset of a sauce...... perfumed with chopped basil and parsley stirred in at the end.

Tonight we draped it over circles of fried courgette, steamed runner beans and baby broad beans. Even with a pan fried fillet of delicate sea bass on the side it was still the star of the show for me.

With such deliciousness I didn't miss the juicy ripe nectarine I would have had for dessert.....or the apricot flapjack. Not  true actually....I can't really pretend tomato sauce - however sweet - is a substitute for  pudding. But I survived today anyway without sugar and lived to tell the tale.

This morning we had a meeting with our lovely financial advisor about our pensions and planning for the future. I've been worrying about it for ages - dreading it -  this morning feeling tense and panicky. Worrying how Robin would be.....if he'd understand....or be difficult....if I would understand either.

Which is why I asked my sister to sit in with us as she has a much better grasp of all things financial than me.

I needed have worried at all. It was a long meeting but Robin understood enough....asked for what he wanted....  what I didn't follow my sister translated for me afterwards and we spent the afternoon making/ adjusting/ reducing the budget.

I wish I'd remembered this wonderful poem by Mary Oliver ( she of The Wild Geese) given to me by a friend recently..... then I could have missed out the worrying "what if" weeks and jumped straight into the song.

“I Worried”
by Mary Oliver

“ I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers 
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn 
as it was taught, and if not how shall 
I correct it? 

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, 
can I do better? 

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows 
can do it and I am, well, 
hopeless. 

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, 
am I going to get rheumatism, 
lockjaw, dementia? 

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. 
And gave it up. And took my old body 
and went out into the morning, 
and sang.”