Drained empty...Small things - big achievements

A few more Portugal pictures...

Yesterday

 I tended to my grief.

To the ancient beat of the drum, 

circled by tender arms, 

I plumbed the deep well 

of wounds,

mine

and 

ours.

Today 

I'm drained

empty

but 

softer

to myself.

Another dawn. 

All day

 two young men have been pumping thick expanding foam into the cavity of the loft, 

between the rafters,

like white waves of piped cream on a dessert. 

Some  nasty chemical formula  is in it I'm sure -  but keeping the house - 

and me -  warmer.

The noise from their machines 

pulses constantly into the air in the house.

All day the gardener has been cutting my boundary hedges.

The sound of the strimmer buzzing through the walls into my head.

The hazel and the box and the conifers are shorn into long straight hedgehog lines....

giving me a longer view out towards the hills.

I can't settle to my tasks of the day with all the noise and disruption, chatting, answering questions, making tea, waiting for them to go.

So small things feel like big achievements.

I change the fuse in  the plug of a table lamp -  and it works. I thought the whole thing was broken.

I stir up a big bowl of brandy and apple and cranberry mincemeat. Just waiting for vegetarian suet which is still in the shop and not in my cupboard as I thought it was.

I find lost emails in my junk file and reply to them.

Roast potatoes always make me happy.

And watching the birds tentatively return to the bird feeders after all the men and their machines have left....peacefulness at last for them ...and for me ...outside at least....  I'm still jangled inside... and now beyond tired.