This morning I donated Robin's collection of Commedia dell'arte masks to the drama department of Exeter University. When I first met him he was passionate about Commedia - a theatre of travelling players in Italy in the 16th century who used masks like these to express their characters' emotions.
He used to teach mask workshops at the City Lit in London.I know the story of how he acquired each one of these over the years - some of them made in leather as were the original masks. I'm glad they are going somewhere they might be used instead of sitting on his office shelf collecting dust.
And inevitably I have been travelling in and out of the country of our early years....remembering those young and vital people we used to be.....
Downloading the photos from my camera I was going to delete this very blurred robin at the end of the garden until I saw the next one of
two Robins! I didn't even realise the second one was there....I was so surprised you could have
knocked me down with a feather.
That's the expression I remember my father using on the phone when I told him I was getting married. Maybe he thought it would never happen as I was 32 at the time....
After my morning at the farmers' market...coffee with a dear friend....and delivering Robin's masks and boxes of his art materials, I felt I could attempt more de-cluttering. But instead I found myself on the sofa with hot water bottle and book....and waking up two hours later in a tangle of blanket and woolly scarf and cardigan...feeling as if I'd been in another country faraway for a long long time.
I am slowly getting better but not as fast as I imagined....so I'm giving in to exhaustion and the sweet softness of coconut rice pudding dolloped with my sister's marvellous raspberry jam which is
all I can tolerate eating as I've burned all the skin off the roof of my mouth and it hurts to eat anything even slightly crisp or scratchy or hot.
I'm so enjoying this beautiful tied bouquet of flowers brought by my nephew's wife and her family on Sunday....
reminding my of all the beauty around me....right here, right now.
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