The Blog I Lost

 8th April 2013 

Our day out at Stourhead House in Wiltshire at the weekend....

In the library at Stourhead House we learn about the man who owned the house and who wrote these books in the 1880s - Richard  Colt Hoare -  who was so grief stricken after the death of his wife and baby son and grandfather that he left his other young son to travel round Europe for 6 years. Needless to say he and his grown up son had a very 'difficult' relationship according to the letters flying between them...

The "Pope's Cabinet" - inlaid with amazing semi-precious stones and lots of secret drawers..

Chandelier....

Mallard on the lake

which my husband limped around with mysterious pains in his foot.....me taking one giant step at a time.....breathing in the beauty breathing out my unreasonable irritation......

Life Changing Loaf

Having a bad blogging night. Just deleted a post and then lost all the photos I downloaded. 

 So instead here is Sarah Britton's  website  - she of The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread. I made this loaf the other day from the Saturday Guardian Cook section and as my husband and I are on a wheat-free, all-nice-things free detox diet it's fantastic for making you feel you are still in the land of real people food. We've had it toasted too, slathered in cumin spiked hummus and it's great with boiled eggs - you don't even miss the butter. Well only a bit.

The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread | My New Roots

mynewroots.org/site/2013/02/the-life-changing-loaf-of-bread/

The Colour of Daisy Yellow

5th April 2013

I’m glad I cleaned the front door before my visitor came. She said the yellowness of it made her cheerful. It is a very bright daisy yellow and especially friendly when the sun shines which it was this morning.

She sat in the big arm chair in our sitting room with a cup of black coffee - I bathed in its aroma while I drank my black roibosh tea - and helped me to fill in a form to claim some money. It’s a wonderful scheme for carers called Take a Break - you have to spend it on yourself on things like having a massage or going away for the weekend or doing a painting course. You have to be able to say that your caring role affects your physical and emotional and mental health to make the claim. I wasn’t sure but my visitor -  who looks after many carers  - said of course it does and I should send off the form straight away.

Later I asked my husband to drive me toTKMAXX via our health food shop called Healthy Pulses and then on to The Range. After many long and repeated explanations - he does know all those shops but doesn’t retain their names or locations for more than seconds - he took all the right turns and we got there easily. 

But it makes me wonder how it’ll be for him - and me - when we have to find our way to Wellingotn or Milford Sound or Te Anau where neither of us has been. At least all the signs are in English in New Zealand and they drive on the same side of the road as us....

And I’ve got time to practise my new resolution to TRUST - the colour of happiness, the colour of daisy yellow....

Tulips and Wild

Today.....

My sister brings me a fat bunch of yellow tulips

buds still curled - 

small pointy praying hands.

She soothes the sting in my travelling fears

and I book flights to New Zealand for me and my husband
next winter.

How wild is that?

Wild and Precious?

Last night  I had a text from a friend reminding me to look at the stars  - which I had noticed on my way up the stairs as I passed the landing window - but I didn’t stop and gaze...

This morning I read Robert Holden’s daily inspiration email where he quotes Mary’s Oliver’s poem, Summer’s Day ‘What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ 

It stays with me all day - this unanswerable question ....

as I hang my powder blue pashmina on the line and it flaps in the wind and the sun like a huge flag announcing a truce on winter.....

as I make yet another long TO DO LIST in purple ink....and wonder if I’ll ever get to the end....

as I heave the vacuum cleaner up to the top of the stairs......

as I cut the heads off two frozen sea bass and try not to retch......

as I carry out two cups of tea for the men on the scaffolding tower outside the front of our house.....

as I explain to my husband that he can’t eat any more dried figs on our detox diet.....

I notice that I have forgotten how savour the moments of my life - however mundane - and how wild and precious feels like someone else’s life - never mine.....

Spring and Panicking

Snakeshead.....

crocus....

Dartington....

A Henry Moore....

This is a 10 minute blog as I promised my husband I’d come to bed....soon.

We didn’t start our detox diet as we were invited to lunch by a dear friend who fed us a rich red tomato and lentil soup and cheese scones with melted butter..... followed by a mincemeat frangipane tart and custard....

Afterwards we walked in the gorgeous peaceful gardens of Dartington Hall under giant knarled trees and in warm sunshine  -  it felt like a spring was whispering round every corner we turned....

And all day I’ve been irritable and tired, waspish and tearful, panicking about money ....now my head is aching and my skin feels as tender as cobwebs.....

A Cold Easter Monday

We plan to do gardening today - cut the hedge, weed the allotment  - but can’t face it when stepping outside I feel the raw cut of the wind on my skin.

We head for the sea instead. Lyme Regis is throng with Easter Monday crowds - queues straggling out of our favourite cafe -  so we end up sharing our vegetable and chick pea pasties with the seagulls on the sloping pebble beach, our backs to the icy wind.

Walking back following the sound of the river, we stop to pick wild garlic leaves which make the car smell all the way home and I decide to add them to a lemony dressing for our supper of grilled salmon fillets and spring greens. I find I’m craving fresh green things after this weekend’s birthday cakes and chocolates and my husband’s dwindling stash of biscuits.

At home I light the gas fire in the sitting room and we play a game of scrabble. I win by one point - but the score doesn't matter - it's extraordinary to me that my husband plays at all  - he looks up every word, mostly doesn't know what they mean -  but it's something we do together....to pass the time.  

I’m feeling ready to start our detox diet tomorrow, but not sure how I’m going to keep warm without the comfort of tea....which is only a thought.....I could start to really like black Roibosh if I drink enough of it.....