A Ritual

Late afternoon yesterday, walking in Mincing Lake Park with my brother,

stabs of lightening immediately followed by harsh whip lashes of thunder bring a stinging waterfall of rain....soaking through our thin shirts in seconds. A mile away my nearly dry washing on the spinner is also caught in the deluge.

Not as serious though as for the people of Coverack on the Lizard in Cornwall who could have drowned in their homes in minutes.

The storm in the night, the constant crack and roll of thunder, kept me awake...an orchestral symphony to  accompany my usual 3am worrying.

Ripe blackberries in the park in July. What's happening? Aren't they supposed to be ready in the autumn....so we can make blackberry and apple crumbles....the apples on our tree in the garden are little green bullets still.

Robin wouldn't have cared about the month - he would have just picked them, sour or not, his favourite task on any walk in the countryside. And insisted I try them even though I like my blackberries super sweet.

This afternoon my sister and brother and I take perfumed roses, buddleia cones and lavender wands from our gardens to our parents' grave which we weeded and cleaned ....remembering my mother who died 9 years ago last week. Our big sister would have come if she could. Later at the Boston Tea Party cafe in Honiton,we clinked cups of hot chocolate and shared coconut flapjacks and a sticky brownie and thanked them for our existence...and their love.

I love this ritual we have created for them. More and more I can see the value of a ritual ....so long as it is fresh each time. We don't need to go their grave to be reminded of them but it does bring us closer - the dead and the living - in this act of celebrating on a particular day.....to remember and honour the ones we love.