The Whole Enormity...

Driving back from Topsham this afternoon after picking up Robin from The Mede. He likes to go the long way round. He's had a good day.

After filling my basket with market veggies I sit outside the pavement cafe this morning catching up with 3 gorgeous women....coffee and cake and laughing .....the sun suddenly disappears and big gusts of wind  shake the leaves from the huge tree on the Cathedral Green reminding me it's really autumn now.

I take my passport  renewal application to the post office to have it checked before sending it off. I remember having our photos taken 10 years ago for new passports. The woman in the photo that will be in my passport for the next 10 years looks about 100. But at least it passes the test for eyes in the right place and not smiling. I had no idea that a new passport costs £82.

Back home I ring the hospital and speak to the respiratory professor's secretary. She says Robin isn't due for an appointment for another month. I say I want it sooner...say I'm very concerned about his breathing after these 2 recent coughing/choking episodes and I thought the MND nurse had been in touch. She rings me back 5 minutes later with an appointment tomorrow at 12.15pm. I take it and cancel the appointment I'd made at the garage to have the brakes on my car checked.

All afternoon in the kitchen ... I boil knobbly cobs of sweetcorn, poach black mulberries in syrup and  cook up all last week's vegetables from the market that I over-bought  - roast aubergines and peppers and red onions and a big tray of tomatoes with garlic and basil..... and fry off a batch of courgette and feta fritters for tonight's supper. Lovely PA coming to look after Robin while I go out  -  such a treat.

Tonight I sit in the circle at the Deeksha mediation group that I haven't been to for months, letting  the sweet music and all the love and kindness and healing wash over me. And then I let the waves of sadness engulf me....feeling the whole enormity of Robin approaching the end of his life...trying to imagine mine without him.