Forgiveness

 This is a first for me - a red onion tart tatin ....part of  the brunch I cooked on Sunday for dear friends. It went well with the very garlicky roasted tomatoes, asparagus/ green pea omelette, sweetcorn/beetroot fritters, roasted roots and steamed  kale/broccoli with tahini lemon dressing and pumpkin seeds.

I've been experimenting with making a diary and gluten free pastry  - using fine milled oatmeal, ground almonds, coconut oil and oat milk. Not quite there yet  - this one was very crumbly. It's tricky to roll and trying to lift it over the top of the onions for this tart tatin without it breaking up was a messy operation to say the least.

It works better if you just make it into a ball and push it with your fingers  into the base of a tart tin and put your filling on top - as I did with this open French apple flan that I made last week. ( The other bowls are my batch baking - using up tomatoes and butternut squash  - for a week's worth of suppers.)

After brunch I walked in the Higher Cemetery .... loving the soft autumn light playing on the gravestones between the  rowan trees.....and the last of the verbena and roses....and 

I scattered rose petals for Robin over the Budleigh pebbles accumulating at the base of his cross.

Today 

While my sister and I were working on a mass of papers at the dining room table, I  noticed a fluttering movement in the water feature which is on the edge of the patio, just near the back door. I  was so thrilled to see my sweet garden Robin hopping around on the pebbles there which I've collected from the beach at Budleigh.

 I've only ever seen him at the bottom of the garden - usually chirruping in the apple tree  - 

he has never come so close to the house before.

I decided he'd come to remind me about forgiveness. He and my sister both.

I'm finding this self compassion practice is a tough one.

 Today while we waded through the incompletions at the bottom of my in-tray I was felled yet again by my raging against fate. This time I wanted to know why the doctors and the nurses and and the consultants and anyone who looked after Robin ...why they hadn't warned me, told me sooner, how close Robin was to dying when all his symptoms...the extreme tiredness...the refusing to eat and drink are such classic signs of someone very very close to the end of their life. 

Then, I tell myself, I could have spent more precious and kinder time with him, those last few days, instead of trying to make him drink 30 mls of  juice,  of some horrible protein drink....instead of trying to keep him alive....instead of just accompanying him....gently....in his dying.

And oh I know this is just a pointless re-hash....and no-one could have known....no-one could have been kinder to me or to him....no-one to blame..... especially not me....

Given who I am I could not have been any other way.

And the whole point of it not being the perfect ending.....the way I  think I would have wanted it.... is that I'm not perfect and what there is for me to do now is to forgive it all. And maybe that's the only purpose of my life now....my Ikigai.....to practise forgiveness and self compassion...so that I can live with myself ....so I can live.

So this is my new daily affirmation - thank you, dear sister..... thank you, Louise Hay....thank you Robin.

I forgive everyone now and in my past, including myself, for all perceived wrongs. I release them with  love, including myself.

And...

I bless and prosper everyone in my world, and everyone in my world blesses and prospers me.