Robins and the hole in my heart.

Even though it's one of my favourite things to do, I'm shattered after my day of Christmas cooking...red cabbage and apple, mincemeat shortbread, more chocolate stuffed dates and  birthday cake. I had bird visitors for company and distraction as I washed up about a hundred times. And more lovely cards and messages - feeling loved and remembered.

I leave you with some robin photos from my archives.  Every time I see a robin it reminds me that my Robin is never very far away...but their sweetness is no substitute for his absence....making the hole in my heart even deeper.

I wish you a Joyous Christmas and happy new year.

 And the robins and I will be back in 2019.

My Butterfly Day Book

Everyone has their own particular way of making their daily life work... of using their calendar/diary/planner/phone/computer/post-it notes as a reminder/recorder of what to do today, tomorrow, next week. Or maybe some people don't....and they can live in the moment without a plan.I can't remember things now without writing them down.

As well as a diary, a physical book I carry with me, I have what I call a Day Book. Hard backed, A4 size, lined pages, with a pretty cover. See above - butterfly notebook on my kitchen picnic table tonight where I'm making recipe notes and shopping lists, planning family meals for Christmas.

As well as TO DO lists, I record other things in it, but not in a very organised, ordered, filed way, in a very dyslexic, random way  - financial conversations, books-to-read recommendations, quotes I like, rough drafts of letters, notes from a video I've watched, lunch menus, summaries of difficult information I need to understand, ideas about the house/the garden, people to contact. But mostly TO DO lists. And mostly I can riffle through the pages and  find things I want to refer to again.

 I started my current Butterfly Book on January 9th and  Christmas planning will take me to the last page.

Here are a few notes taken at random from my year.

January 9th.

1.Take back bath plug to HomeBase.

2. Find home for Robin's art materials and masks. University drama dept?

3. Be kind to myself. ( not ticked off)

5th May

1.What quality of life do I want in a new home? (17 items recorded.)

2.Costs of house move?

3.Pay road tax and car insurance.

20th July

Moving Day - what to put in Survival Box-

eg matches

extension leads

lemons

17th September

1.Make leek and potato soup.

2.Read 'Healing and Recovery' by David R Hawkins

3. Matt Kahn - 4 Factors of Consciousness- 

Find beauty/innocence in the imperfections you hide from others.

And today

1. Downlaod claim form from Denplan.

2. Make chocolate and vanilla icecream

3. Clean disgusting curtain cords in sitting room.

4.Matt Kahn video notes from -  We Belong to the Light -  

It is a trap to think "I can't be happy or free till I get rid of all this pain and sadness". ...you will then be  in an endless cycle of self help instead of taking all of it - the confusion, pain, boredom, frustration and loneliness, and opening up your mind and heart to the true initiation occurring within you.

Do not ask what does this mean? 

Instead ask What do I need?

This leads to heart wisdom."

I find his words very helpful, and soothing and hopeful while I unpack my market shopping into the fridge. Especially as I  have been a little weepy all day....doing my yoga, driving the car, in the Italian cafe where I'm sharing a Christmas coffee and lemon pistachio cake..so grateful to the dear friends who listen and understand and don't judge... and remind me of the light inside me beyond this constant dark and leaking wound. 

Tonight I watch the final of Masterchef the Professionals where the three incredible, talented young chefs take food way beyond the limits of meat and two veg into the realms of an art form,  but still a delicious one according to the judges.

I take my leek omelette, garlicky ginger carrots, Swiss chard and broccoli  beyond my usual supper limits by cooking a ripe plantain and serving it on the side. I've recently discovered the super-food fibre and vitamin benefits of Plantain.

Not in an art form but delicious all the same.

In Need of Light

I don't have many Christmas decorations. And over the last few years since Robin was ill we didn't even put up a tree. Not having children, we didn't create many rituals around Christmas and eventually gave up having adult  'stockings' -  a tradition Robin brought with him from his family. It got rather out of hand...wrapping up loads of little jars and packets of food and knickknacks on Christmas Eve, including a sugar mouse and a satsuma stuffed in the toe of the stocking. And he always gave me far too much.

I don't want to open up lots of packing boxes to look for our Christmas decorations...including baubles for the tree that my mother used to have....I'm not feeling very festive anyway and feel as if I'm just going through the motions of this time of year.  All that matters to me is spending time with my family and I'm going to be doing that. And making and sharing our traditional festive food.

 But then it is common traditions/rituals that connect us.... even if they are different.... and they are different all over the world. So the symbolism of bringing light into the darkness has to be a universal theme for us all however we interpret it.

And I'm feeling in  need of light. To lighten up the load I put myself under. 

So today I went to the garden centre where they have an overwhelming display of all things  Christmassy that you can light up - candles and trees and reindeer and stars -  with or without batteries. And in spite of nearly having a breakdown under the canopy of sparking and flashing LED lights  - too much choice - I bought a very cheap symbolic tree and heart to keep me in the spirit of giving and sharing. And to remind me to lighten up.

Also they are really pretty even if they don't have a symbolic meaning. I love them and I've never bought anything like them before.

The moon tonight viewed from my bedroom window.

The best light of all. No batteries needed.

Seagulls & Sunsets . Shopping and Stress

As it has been raining most of today I'm posting photos in Portugal a few weeks ago.

Seagulls and sunsets.

And as it has been a day of mostly shopping and stress I'm posting a couple of quotes to remind me of the bigger picture. 

For which I am truly grateful.

Gratitude is an angel that blesses both the giver and the receiver.

Robert Holden.

Let what wants to come, come . Let what wants to go, go. If it is mine it will stay. If not, whatever is better will replace it.

Tosha Silver

Backed up with the debris...And the Light in the Darkness

Sunrise....

Sunday morning.

It rained and blustered all day. I stayed in and wrote Christmas cards....till it got too hard....remembering Robin and all our Christmases ...again and again.

Then in the late afternoon,

the sun visited the sky briefly

and turned the garden into a copper furnace 

till it left  soon after ....trailing apricot blushed clouds behind it.

This morning, early, before it's light, I walk into  the village which is  deserted and post the cards. On the way back people have started to come out of their houses...they are scraping the thin layer of ice patterns off their car windscreens.

Back home I walk the perimeter of the garden, across crunchy white iced grass and I notice the stream has backed up into a little flood plain at the place where it crosses the boundary with my neighbour, where it drops down a level, and is marked by a green wire fence which I know was put there by my predecessor to keep the dog in the garden.

I pull on wellies, take a rake and a spade from the garage, wade into the gravel bed of the stream and start rooting around in the water to see what is causing the blockage. I haul up huge spadefuls of dead leaves - oak and chestnut, ash and willow -  all mixed up with sludge and mud. I stagger about with my heavy loaded spade and throw the muck up onto the bank. It's hugely satisfying when suddenly it clears and the murky red, churned up water rushes through the squares of the wire fence, down into my neighbour's land, taking the rest of the leaves and debris with it.

I did it.... but really it's too much for my back, and I need to sit for a long while at the kitchen table with a glass of water before I get up to make breakfast. 

I feel sad that I used to be able to do much more in the garden, for much longer periods without everything hurting. Not so strong now. Or maybe I'm just weakened by this underground river of grieving....backed up with the debris of old losses. 

This evening I walk in the nearly deserted streets of Exeter after my late afternoon appointment at the hairdresser. I never go into town at this time of day if I can avoid it as I loathe crowds. But tonight I could see how everything looks different under the bright Christmas lights....an undercurrent of excitement, possibility, how I used to feel in the days of going out after dark ....when the night is still young, and anything can happen.

 And I'm suddenly transported back to the first time were were taken one night, as children, to look in the shop windows, all lit up with glitter and sparkle in the streets of Lusaka. Maybe we were going to the Pantomime.... but I still remember that feeling of wonder and excitement .... this was the mystery world of the grown-ups.........how the ordinary day time shops were totally transformed....beacons of   light in the darkness ....and how I wanted that night to go on forever.