I still have bricks and mortar.

A young friend comes to tea on Saturday.

He brings chocolate raspberry brownies and sweet kindness in his good wishes for me.

Sunday I bake a feta cheese, courgette, tomato,  spring onion and rosemary frittata  and make a sweet red pepper sauce to go with it. I take it along with an apple/orange tart tatin for lunch with my sister's family. 

As my sore knee stops me playing football with my great-nephew in the garden,  I sit on a bench in unexpected warm sun shine and watch the game...  so lovely to hear him and my nephew laughing. At half time we have tea and the left over chocolate raspberry brownies.

Later we join the half term Sunday crowds swarming along the promenade and playing on the beach at Lyme Regis for slow walking, sandcastle building and ice cream cones. And then back for Harry Potter on the TV and baked beans and eggs on toast for supper.

Today 

I feel disoriented since the clocks went back yesterday...the hours seem longer.

And the temperature drops dramatically.  There's ice on the car windscreen this morning.

The warmest place is the kitchen -  especially this evening with the oven on - I roast a pan of  parsnips, purple carrots and white onions and make a spicy vegetable medley for supper. But I still have to keep defrosting my fingers in hot water so I can type.

I keep thinking about the book I'm reading at the moment, gift from a dear friend,The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.

She and her husband become homeless and penniless, and he is diagnosed with a terminal illness but they walk the South West Coastal path with nothing but a tent and packs on their backs.

It makes me feel so grateful for the house - however cold and  uncomfortable it is - however much I'm dreading the winter and all the building work ahead -  however temporary  - I still have bricks and mortar  and the protection that Robin left me with. 

I still have choices.

I may not have this beautiful humming bird wallpaper ( that I spotted in a furniture shop) in my new home but at least I can contemplate the possibility of it. And I do love it. Something lovely to think about instead of the  house being bashed about, a digger in the drive and the  prospect of bricks and mortar piling up in heaps in the swimming pool and ice on the ground.