Sweeten The Sourness

It took nearly an hour for our gardener to pick these cherries at the allotment yesterday afternoon and he didn't even strip the whole tree. I was hoping the birds would have stolen most of them. They look wonderful but they are sour cherries. Even too sour for the birds.

The best - and most abundant -  cherries I've ever tasted were grown in Armenia.  Especially this white variety.

We were visiting Robin's cousin and his Armenian family during the cherry season,

which was a wonderful bonus for us as these were from their own cherry trees on their land,

so the house was always full of bowls of cherries to be dipped into any time. Which I did and still never tired of them.

After the  Armenian white ones, the black ones that you can buy in this country are my favourite.

So even though we have a glut of sour ones, we also have one small tree, a sweet black eating cherry, planted by Robin all those years ago, which for the first time this year produced at least 30 amazing  shining cherries  - see below in the centre of the photo.

I ducked under the netting I'd flung and pegged over the tree and picked them all. Along with  blackcurrants and redcurrrants. There should also be a punnet of strawberries in the photo as I picked those as well but must have left them on the newly strimmed grass path by the bed. I forgot to go back and collect them today so I expect the birds enjoyed them for breakfast.

Now I'm left with a huge bowl of glowering sour cherries in the fridge. I don't fancy making jam out of them  - all that skimming the froth and pip editing. Probably need to get over my pique first -  that they are sour and not sweet - accept what they are and find a way to love them. Cooking them with sugar, pips and all, to sweeten the sourness, would be a place to start.

Turning The Page

On Sunday, my sister and I are invited to our niece's family hen do at Kew Gardens. It's a beautiful blue hot afternoon.  After lunch at the Orangerie, finished off with these pure heavenly home made chocolates, we take the Tree Walk up 

into the sky with views of the gardens and the glass houses which are being renovated and covered in white plastic sheeting.

 It's like being able to reach out and touch the green roof of the world.

We find these ducks

 basking on the green lake,

and this shady heron on an island in the middle.

Crossing the bridge .... 

you could be in the middle of the country.

Kew Gardens are in Heathrow's flight path. Not that this statue by  

Henry More takes any notice. We end the day with tea, sticky iced cakes and ice-creams sitting on the dry brown grass in the shade and talk the talk of the wedding. We talk of 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'  and I give my niece her grandmother's wedding ring to wear on the day, on another finger. 

 If she was here, my mother, I know she would be very happy for her and her lovely man - as I am -  exchanging vows tomorrow.....turning the page deep into a new chapter of their lives.

This afternoon I made the first of two cakes I'm taking to their big wedding celebration on Saturday  to add to the dessert table which I know will be laden with lots of luscious puds from some of the wedding guests - she calls us the Dessert Divas. Mine is my ubiquitous Lemon Polenta Cake with an Orange Honey Glaze. I mustn't forget to buy the raspberries and blueberries to decorate it with. These days it's the sort of important thing that's quite likely to slip my mind.

Return Me To Love

Saturday morning pigeon.

We drive across the length of Dartmoor beyond Princetown and the bleakness of the prison there..... 

I'm loving my 'Jazz'.....to Yelverton,  north of Plymouth, to the National Trust's

 700 year old Buckland Abbey. This is our view of it while we eat our picnic ( mine is mashed up egg and last night's soft cooked veggies - protecting my palate from scrunchy celery) on a shaded bench in sniffing distance of heavenly scented roses.

The walled kitchen garden .....

 honey bee hives....

happy hens..

in the apple orchard.....

chard of light...

caged raspberries..

 star dahlia...

nasturtium fire...

poppy in the wind..

scoops of sun...

acer shimmer.

Inside the house - self portrait of Reubens......

Sir Frances Drake who stayed at the house with

Lady Drake...

his travels in stained glass...

and a giant Victorian statue of him which was lost  - somehow  - and found many years later broken into bits and buried in Haldon Woods outside Exeter - put back together and returned to the Abbey.

 The day is really too hot and long for Robin, so we eat Magnum ice creams in umbrella shade and drive home a shorter route narrowly missing a horrid accident on the A38. We take a detour around it before the police arrive and close the road. Back home I find I didn't miss Andy Murray's match after all.

Today I take my first gentle class in Trauma Release Exercise and discover I can tremble deep in my stomach and  let my legs shake -  like wounded animals do - my body remembering some buried fear - I don't need to know more than that - and let it out.....let it go. I'm hoping it'll help with the excess of adrenalin which has taken up residence in my heart and lungs....help me to slow down and relax.......  put myself back together....and return me to love. 

This Too Will Pass

Weary and weepy tonight. Was buoyant earlier in the week. Swings and roundabouts - normal.

Particularly grumpy because I can't eat what I want. Scalded the roof of my mouth on a boiling cup of  coffee last Sunday in Wells when we were in a tiny corner cafe taking refuge from the rain, along with a few hundred motorbike riders, who were gathering in the square outside the cathedral for a rally. 

I've tried to ignore it all week but now it's too painful to eat or drink anything hot or crunchy or scratchy - or anything at all really. I thought I'd give it time to heal and just drink green smoothies but that didn't last long. So I've felt like a toothless invalid sucking on hard boiled eggs and mashed up broccoli cooked to death and frozen banana ice-cream.  Will buy avocados tomorrow.  And treat it with the Mouth Doctor's Ora - a  brilliant natural remedy of essential oils.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that

  This too will pass.

My In-Between Hours and Being in a Hurry

New Zealand

New Zealand

Devon

Portugal

South Africa

South Africa

Photos from the archives - it rained a lot today.

This morning, when I'm leaving the house earlier than usual to go to the farmers' market, our neighbour across the road is walking her children to school. 

This afternoon when I'm getting in the car to go and collect Robin from The Mede Care Centre she is bringing them back. I imagine the envelope of her day - defined by the school run and her hours in-between without them.

I was so grateful for my hours in-between today.  Grateful there is such a warm and caring and stimulating place for Robin to be. Grateful I can pay for it.

When I arrive to collect him they are outside playing a game of croquet on the grass or watching it - the elderly gentlemen and the lovely staff, all together in the sunshine.

In the car going home Robin says he didn't understand any of the conversations, or the topic of the talk by the woman visitor, he can't tell me what he had for lunch or the name of the game he just played. But I can tell from the feel of him that he had enjoyed some of the day. And for the moment some is enough.

I was late for my meditation group tonight as I was enthralled by a tennis match I'd started to watch on TV.  But actually I felt so sad to see the great Rafael Nadal be beaten by the fast and furious Mr Brown -  his trademark long dread-locks flying behind him like a whirlwind of tails.

 In the street near our friends' house I parked my new ( actually 5 years old) dinky Honda Jazz in a hurry - my instinct was to move it but I didn't want to be any later than I was. Turned out I was right. This note was stuck on the windscreen when I came back.

Dear Driver - you have parked selfishly blocking both the pavement and the road.

There was no-one to say sorry to. So I forgave myself instead - grateful I'd escaped worse wrath or damage. Grateful I've got another chance to park safely next time..... to trust my instinct....... and a reminder of the price of being in a hurry.

An Open Rose For The Picking

In the pink.....

Random words about today as I'm knackered tonight.

The trouble with this heavy heat is that my feet and ankles swell up like jelly fish.

I succeed in paying my new car tax online....fail to get the title deeds of our house from the Land registry online.

I succeed in driving my new Honda Jazz for half an hour without mishap......fail to reverse park it outside the house in largish space.

The lovely gardener does his thing on the rampant ivy with secateurs and saws down a delinquent tree shading my clothes spinner. And suddenly there is light and breeze in the back garden.

Salad for lunch, salad for supper  - easy peasy.

And what if I wasn't responsible for everything....for trying to make everyone happy so that they will love me? What if I looked inside and found love already there waiting for me to notice it  - an open rose for the picking - petals to share.