Spattered with Paint and Memories

This morning, when I draw my curtains ( Ikea, too long and trailing on the carpet, but fine for now) 

this is my view ....the light filtering in through the European ash and oak tree on the bank of the stream.

And this is my view from the other window. I love being able to see the high field and  row of trees on the horizon.

I've been watching this squirrel all week, scurrying about and

burying hazel cob nuts in the lawn,

running round the house, getting ready for winter, giving me a fright when he comes so close to the back door.

It's such a beautiful warm morning I do three loads of washing - the  towels -  and as I've finished painting the walls for now, all my paint splattered clothes and the dust sheets, which are actually  all our old duvet covers and sheets from the different stages and ages and the houses of our life, spattered with paint and memories.

I love having the space to have 3 washing lines - (instead of the cramped closeness of a the lines of a whirly gig spinner) -  put up for me by my gardener. A triangle from flag pole to summer house to apple tree.  I don't know why but it makes me feel like a grown up with a proper washing line.

I have lovely visitors at coffee time. Robin's oldest school friend and his wife. We walk round the garden in the sunshine ....sit at the garden table in the kitchen ( the old dining room table is too big for the space) and nibble on crumbly flapjacks and figs and plums .....and catch up with our lives. And we don't talk much about Robin and the past....  but it's always there between us.....he is always the fourth chair at the table.  He feels so close....I imagine I could reach out and touch him.... all the living warmth of him.....I wish with all my heart that I could.

When they have left to take care of their sick pussy cat, I slather my arms with suncream, squash an old straw hat on my head and finish weeding the front beds. I started it the other evening but ran out of steam. The red Devon clay is dry and compacted but the weeds don't seem to mind and thrive anyway. 

I water the rose bushes and still can't believe my luck to have 

roses...enough of them to cut and bring into the house ...and they still keep flowering.

My supper tonight ....I make a similar version most nights with whatever I have in the fridge from the market or what I have been gifted from home grown gardens......roasted roots, a steamed green, an egg and a splatter of seeds. 

I eat alone but since I've been here I feel Robin around me more strongly somehow ....more than at Sylvan Road....like bringing him with me....in the paint spattered duvet covers.....leaving certain memories behind.... although I can't make new memories with him here....such a strange thought. But I can start choosing what to remember without being triggered by his presence, his illness and the last 8 years embedded in every room of the house, in every plant in the garden.

There is nothing to forget here. Only new memories to make. Which only I will remember.