Loving the next generation into being.

Today I spend in the company of my newest sweet great-niece. 8 months old and very adorable.

I'm one of a little tribe of women dedicated to looking after her while her mother is away working  for the day.

Her grandmother is her guardian and we are team aunt and great aunties.

She sits on her play mat and turns the pages of soft books and bashes at buttons on toys that play jingles. 

She sits on our laps and laughs at our antics.

She falls asleep in the buggy that we push in the drizzle

and doesn't know we get lost in unfamiliar streets. 

Her grandma can't read the map on her phone with her glasses which gave gone dark,

one of her great aunties hasn't got her glasses at all, 

the other one, that's me, can see the map perfectly well( with glasses) but still

can't work out which way is up.

We get her back home in the end with a bit of intuition and 

'it must be over there because that's where the woods are'.

We discuss the merits of  To Calpol or not to Calpol?

when she cries with a tummy pain.

We warm up  a bottle of formula in a glass jug of hot water which she drinks very happily.

And then a small pouch of chick pea and sweet potato puree  - she tries a few sips on the end of a  yellow plastic spoon but is more interested in playing with a red heart shaped pan scourer and chewing the end of a clean pink moppet.

In between we  make endless cups of tea which go cold, eat a dhal soup and salad lunch - well some of  us do - her grandma never gets to finish hers - walk her up and down to soothe her or turn the pages of more soft books and bash more buttons on toys to entertain her.

Her best entertainer is her little cousin when he comes back from school. Just throwing a ball in the air, he makes her laugh and laugh, which is wonderful sound. 

 She is very happy indeed when her mum comes home, full of milk and smiles, her grandma can pass back the guardian baton and team aunt and great aunties can have a G and T and make the pizza and garlic bread supper.

And  tonight, after witnessing the sheer hard work as well as the joy and reward, I offer up a prayer of utter gratitude and admiration to all parents and grandparents everywhere who are doing the most important job in the world .....doing their best under all circumstances....loving the next generation into being.

Paying attention to daffodils, ducks and exploding bulrushes

A lamb turning her face to the sun. 

I'm driving to the Great Western Canal at Tiverton and can't resist stopping at the gate of a field to take photos of the first spring lambs I've seen this year.

Exploding bulrushes on the banks of the canal more like candy floss than Cattails...

soft as lamb's wool.

An unusual  white duck  swimming with the other mallards in the log jam of dead bulrush stalks.

It's so hot - the house doesn't get much morning sun so it's cold when I leave, wearing jumper, coat, scarf and gloves - and I end up carrying them all.

When I get back to the car the temperature gauge measures

21 degrees.

 The canal has many associations for me - my father's 90th Birthday and all  the many times Robin and I walked this particular route before and after his illness.

 But today I stay attentive to my own footsteps -  loving the still winter beauty, especially the skeleton shapes of the trees, as I walk in summer heat alongside the ducks and the daffodils and the bulrushes exploding their fine soft wool into the February air....remembering Mary Oliver's  

Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

 Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Banana Muffins.... and Turning My Face to the Sun

I don't want to make my usual breakfast  -  a fruit smoothie which is jam packed with nuts and seeds and hemp and spirolina powders - the latter colours everything a deep sea green -  fresh chopped turmeric with a grinding of black pepper and kefir yogurt.

I want something hot and simple for my delicate insides. So I  make these Banana and Pecan Blueberry muffins.

Beat 2 eggs with 2 smashed up bananas and 2 tablespoons of ground almonds. Add a handful of blueberries and a few chopped up pecans. Pour into greased ( I used olive oil) muffin tins and bake for about 15 -20 mins at 180 degrees. I made 4 with this mixture. They are really more of a drop scone or pancake mixture but they work well as little muffins - albeit not very well risen muffins.

I also tried out  a vegan version which don't look so pretty but are still pretty good.

Mix one tablespoon of ground up flax seed with 3 tablespoons of water (ie the egg substitute).

 Pour it into a bowl with one mashed up banana, 2 tablespoons of ground almonds, blueberries and pecans as above and a little almond milk if it's too thick. It should be a fairly slack mixture.

Bake as above but for 5-10 mins longer.

They are quite a soft, moist muffin - nicest warm I think. Any left over of both versions keep in the fridge or they can go a bit mouldy. 

 I want to do some planting -  some herbs I bought last year and daffodil and allium bulbs which are in desperate need of soil but as I'm not feeling up to much, before I start I sit for a long time on the bench with a cup of coffee and turn my face to the sun.

I remember my father telling how in Africa if someone wants to die they turn their face to the wall. 

They stop eating and drinking. They choose to go.

Today I choose to turn my face to the sun but I can understand the temptation of the wall.

So after  while I get up and start weeding the little square bed in the patio under the kitchen window, and  plant rosemary and parsley and Vietnamese basil plants in expectation, anticipation of hot fragrance in the summer.

It has been the hottest few days of February since records began - up to 18 degrees in some places. On this day last year it was minus 12 degrees in some places. The bumble bees will be confused.

I'm loving it.

Later on I have a conversation with lovely FengShui consultant to talk over her report about the house. Some radical ideas for me to get my head around.

 But not impossible. Even exciting.  Something definite to show the architect on Friday.

Taking down some walls. Letting the sun into some dark places.

Deep Gnarled Roots....and Accompanying Change

Sunday morning early mist clears into fabulous warm blue spring day.

I hang washing on the line and sweep up dead winter leaves in the drive, start weeding and clearing the pots and the borders. And pull out brambles in the hedge - except the deep gnarled rooted ones which defeat me.

Frosty ground this morning,

but like yesterday it clears into 

another warm blue day.

 As I'm  in Exeter after my therapy session, although I wasn't planning it - except it has been on my mind a lot recently - I drive to Higher Cemetery. I'm finally starting the process of replacing the wooden cross with a more permanent headstone/ marker of some kind. I want some inspiration.

I find a twisted fallen branch nearby and drape it over his cross, like the arms of old friends.

I scatter the yellow rose petals - a past its sell-by date bunch from Waitrose - and two deep rose pink rhododendron blooms that I stole from a bush in another part of the cemetery. 

 I stay a long while in the shade of the fir tree thinking about what Robin would like me to say.... what to write in stone....what would capture his aliveness in a forever way.

Then I walk along the paths, shaded with the bare branches of tall spreading trees, and cherry blossom too, and between the grave stones, in and out of sunlight, secluded from the traffic of Exeter below, walking with the calls of crows and magpies and the spirits of the loved departed ones.  It is so peaceful and beautiful.

 Back home I was going to do more gardening but my gut problems have returned so I stay quiet with  a hot water bottle and a mug of miso soup.

 It's only temporarily I'm sure...stirred up by all my anxieties around change - so much change to digest -   the inevitable uncontrollable march of it all -  getting older - grey hair and swollen joints - learning to live alone, my home in flux.

 I want to embrace it all..be positive ...be grateful. And I am that too.

 But at the moment I'm entangled in the deep gnarled roots of my early child hood survival strategies -  trying to control everything to make my self feel safe.

It was a good survival strategy at the time. And has become like the arms of an old familiar friend.

 But I can't control time. I couldn't control Robin's dying and death. At the moment I can't control my insides.

So I made 2 new affirmations with my therapist today. To remind me that there is another way to feel safe.

I allow myself to be nourished on all levels.

And,

I accompany all changes that come my way with love and trust.