In The Pink/In The Sunshine/In The Shade

 In the kitchen this morning - pink elderflowers steeping in lemon syrup ....

drain them through a j-cloth lined sieve...

funnel the liquid into bottles and you have Pink Elderflower Cordial. 

 It's the third time I've made it this month....stripping the lacy flower heads from the tree at the allotment as soon as they burst open. I'm making the cordial in mega quantities this year  -  diluted with sparkling water it's my contribution to the bar at my niece's wedding in July - for those of us who don't drink champagne.

Continuing the pink theme.... feather light pink grasses along the path at Castle Drogo on Sunday...always remind me of my big sister running her  hands over their silky tops in some wild bush field in Africa...

Foxgloves for my Uncle who died only a few months ago..

he once told me foxgloves were his favourite flower.

 Petticoat Peony for all those beautiful young women who bless my life....

at the beginning of their flowering journeys.

For my mother who will always be a pink rose in my heart.

This one for all the dearly beloved goddesses who are growing older and lighter with me -  cupping me in the grace of their love.

And the softness of this sky for all the lovely men in my life - their tenderness and care for me  - a bouncy castle wall - keeping me from falling too far into the dark.

Thank you - each dear one of you -  for  keeping me company now as I walk beside the man I love with his broken brain, in and out of the sunshine and the shade.

The Tulip Leaf

 Saturday afternoon I'm in hot heaven -  down in the sunken rose garden at Tyntesfield house, camera at the ready. Not many roses blooming yet but lots of pompom alliums and these bumble bees in their own nectar humming heaven.

Robin is behind me up the steps gazing at a tall chalice pot of dead headed tulips. He calls out to me.

I drag myself away from the bees and climb the steps.

What are these? he says.

Tulips - but the flowers have gone.

Can I eat it? he says breaking off a piece of the flopping green leaf.

No, it's not a herb. He knows it's OK to try a herb if I point it out. He hunts for wild garlic remorselessly on our walks.

You mustn't eat it - it could make you sick.

I don't think it will but I'm trying to teach him not to eat any random leaf or berry or flower in the wild or in garden borders.

I'm going to, he says. 

I try and stop him. 

He whips the leaf behind his back and then straight into his mouth and chews it up.

I know I must put some distance between us. I walk back into the rose garden, not seeing the roses, not seeing anything  - just breathing - looking at the gravel path under my feet. 

He follows me, miserable, till I stop and tell him why I'm angry in my tight lecturing voice.

Later, after we both say sorry I try and imagine what it must be like to have so little control over your life any more. It looks like I have all the power, I'm always right, I know everything because he can't remember it any more, and he has to totally depend on me. Except when it comes to what he puts in his mouth - he can be in charge of that. And how can I blame him?

 His one grab for power in a flapjack or a tulip leaf.

Small Plans For Tomorrow

All magenta pink and peach and bronze in Aunty P's garden.....

It's a beautiful evening -  warm, bright and windy -  still light at nearly 10pm. I love these long summer nights but imagine I have to keep working  - because that's what you do in the hours of daylight - at least that's what you do in my family. Working being the relentless next job on a circular list that never ends.....working being ordinary domestic tasks like watering the garden, making supper, phoning the decorator, updating my accounts, making next week's arrangements....and 

not sitting in the sunshine with a book on my lap, daydreaming, breathing in the peppery perfume of the freight of honeysuckle weighing down the fence.

While I push the lawn mower over the daisies in the grass the aroma of the neighbour's BBQ sails through the evening along with the sound of children's voices, music through open windows.... and I remember that other life we used to have - before the  unwanted voices in the head, before the dying of a brain. We might have sat in this night garden with fresh mackerel fillets smoking on the BBQ and a bottle of cold white wine between us.....talking..... making big summer plans.

And then I remember how easy it is for me to romanticise the past....it's just as likely we'd have drunk too much...had an upset....gone to bed not speaking, not touching...hurting.

So tonight.... in this life.... we sit at the sunshine table, out of the wind, with hot mushroom pies, baby carrots, garlicky spinach and fried cherry tomatoes on our plates...... a bottle of sparkling water between us..... and we make small plans......just for tomorrow.

Packed Tight As A Tick

All yellows and blues in Robin's aunty's beautiful cottage garden borders on Sunday.

My day is packed tight as a tick.....no wriggle room or thinking space.

Up early, make green juice, answer emails and then fly into the market and fill my basket with long stemmed celery, frothy fennel and fat juicy pak  choi.....and  in M&S an impulse buy of shoes for my niece's wedding.

Back in time for visit from lovely Community Psychiatric Nurse who raises my spirits, warms my heart....offers support with husband's assessment.

Husband back early from walk with his favourite Age UK befriender...low in energy and spirits. Wonder if I should worry but make cold nut roast lunch instead.

Meet reliable gardener at the allotment who strims the long weedy paths between the beds while I pick rhubarb and radishes and lug watering cans to and fro. Allotment neighbour says I need to net the cherry tree or the birds will strip it.

Back home with grass in my hair and splinters in my thumb in time to wake up husband and drive the 45 minutes to Sidmouth for our fortnightly EFT session. My driving arm sticking out of the window burns in the sun.

Husband asks to do tapping on not saying all the horrible words that spring into his mind and jump out of his mouth. We've already noticed a change in the frequency of this - he's doing it less - says he can talk to his brain and sometimes control it.

After the session we all feel brighter, hopeful.

 In the town we buy a huge bag of fruit  - nectarines and peaches, strawberries and apples and then sit on the pebbly beach licking ice creams and watching the waves churn up the sand.

Rush hour traffic on way home. Husband goes for a sleep. I prepare asparagus and egg supper which he'll cook later when I come back from my Deeksha meditation group....where I nearly fall asleep....resting in all the love and kindness ... filling the room like sunshine.

I leave them with the bag of rhubarb to share, ring husband to put the eggs on and hope I'll be home in time to watch The Good Wife.....which I am.

A Sweet Precious One

So cute....playing with water .....my great-niece today in the care of  her grandma.

Earlier we took her to the park - without a pushchair....my sister carrying her....stopping to chat to curious dogs....each  of us holding a little hand ....counting one two three and swooping her up in the air....setting her down squealing with delight every time.....playing peek-a-boo through the railings of the climbing frames....reading her sweet face for signs of I've had enough - what's next?....Oh it's picking shining buttercups and sprays of cow parsley from the grass verge and throwing them down with a mischievous smile...and talking on grandma's switched off mobile phone, pushed to her ear, a conversation with her other grandma which only she can hear. 

Although it wasn't her fault, somehow on this magical walk in the park the mobile phone got lost.....and even though we went back later to search for it in amongst the buttercups  and the cow parsley we never found it.

A phone can be replaced...and luckily the joy of this day with such a sweet precious one will always be lodged in my heart.

This is the family pussy cat who understandably doesn't feel quite the same way about her.....

Thunderbirds Are Chocolate

Cake not quite up to par when I sliced it through the middle this morning to fill it with butter icing. I was hoping for a light crumb texture like in the photo in the recipe book -  but it was a bit dense in the centre i.e. not cooked - so I  called it Chocolate Fudge Cake instead.

Decoration didn't quite go to plan ( not that I actually had a plan - just lots of chocolate sprinkles - thank you Mr Sainsbury's Cake decorating department). I wanted to write sweet great-nephew's name in white chocolate on the top of the smooth icing....I cut too much off the nozzle of the tube of icing  so it all splurged out...tried to rescue it...had to rough up the surface....wrote wobbly number 4 instead which even sweet great-nephew had difficulty recognising. Did more cover up job with sprinkles.

None of it mattered anyway  - he blew out the candles, ate a big slice and did a sort of wobbly wiggle dance in his seat which apparently means he really liked it.

And what he liked even more was the Thunderbirds set his father found on the internet....including a model of Tracy Island ( at least I think that's what it is - way out of my depth now....all I remember is Thunderbirds Are Go). Thank goodness I didn't attempt a version in chocolate icing......

Cornwall and Chocolate Cake

Robin says he wants to go to Cornwall so on Saturday we drive an hour and  half to Cotehele House which is only just beyond Plymouth at Saltash but still it satisfies his request. Last time we came here - last July -  he got lost taking the picnic basket back to the car park  and I couldn't find him so this time we do it together. ....after our woodland walk down to the river and our windy picnic in a field watching house martins( or swallows )  swoop down on a grey-headed crow foraging in the grass by our table.

Today it's all blustery wind and on and off rain....cold enough to put the heating on this evening -  1st of June. I think at least it's good for the garden and the allotment...but not if you are sleeping rough on the streets.

Robin is doing his wonderful washing up job....I must go and wrap up the chocolate cake I made this afternoon for my beloved great nephew's 4th birthday tomorrow - it should be cool by now. I made one yesterday but decided it was too rich and dense ( Nigella's Damp Chocolate cake) and needed a more child friendly version. I chose a recipe I haven't made before from a lovely book called Tea With Bea -  a Buttermilk Chocolate Cake.....still looks quite dark but I'll sweeten it up with butter icing tomorrow and hope he likes it.

 It would be better if it was in the shape of a Thunderbirds Rocket but that is quite beyond my great aunty remit.