Reaching for a Mirage.

On Saturday I share this pizza ( it didn't need the sweet chutney dabbed on it) with a dear friend at the Toby Buckland Garden and Flower Show at Powderham Castle just outside Exeter. The field is a quagmire of mud and it's biting cold so we don't stay till the bitter end.

 As well as all the wonderful plants for sale there are local food stalls and this one

selling a forest of  

unusual, very clean looking  mushrooms.

My friend buys this stunning ten foot tall evergreen clematis - she has a big area of her garden to re-plant.

I'm very temped to stock up on plants as they are at wholesale prices but as I'm in such a limbo with the garden ..... am I moving or not....to plant or not to plant? I only buy a small pot of  fairy bell Leucojum  Snowflake called Tinkerbird.

The castle in the distance...

beyond 

the delicate perfection of

apple

blossom bursting out all over the trees in the car park.

 The trouble is that now I always associate this carpark with the time I left Robin in the car for a few minutes

while I got out to take photos of the deer in the field in front of the castle. Four days before he died. It's always like this now. There is nowhere that does not hold a memory of him. Sometimes I let it pass through me .....leaving a map of those days under my skin...sometimes it stops me in my tracks, leaves me gasping for air....reaching for mirages.

Today - finally blue sky and brief sun to warm the icy April air.  This morning I sit with two dear friends for a lovely Violet Flame meditation...and later in a warm cafe, I eat soup and a bread roll  birthday lunch with three more dear friends.....and back home I cut the daisies in the grass with my not very sharp lawn mower.....loving the sun on my neck.

Tonight on the news I watch a middle aged woman feeding a man with grey hair and glasses. He's sitting in an adapted chair. She spoons pasta into his mouth. You can see how he hates being unable to do it himself. 

 He has Motor Neurone Disease - since 2014. His life expectancy is 12 months. 

He is appealing against a decision in the High Court today to revise the law on assisted dying.

He wants to be able to end his own life with dignity before every nerve in his body stops functioning and incapacitates him totally.

 It breaks my heart to see them. Brings it all back to  me. It could have been our story. And I'm so grateful we didn't have to go down that route. We had an end of life policy in place but at least Robin didn't have to go to the bitter end ....waiting for years...getting worse. It was quick in MND terms. 

Too quick for me. Too soon. What would I give for one more hour, one more touch, one more smile, one more breath.

The hell of reaching for a mirage.