Ash in the Wind....The Love That Never Dies

My sister lays a fire in the field at their farm and I drive over with four heavy black bin bags

stuffed with all the financial papers I've been sorting and clearing out of Robin's office.

We start chucking them into the flames which

 burn hotter and hotter as they consume more and more bank statements and tax returns and cheque books from the last seven years. Each one representing all that money earned and spent and saved and all Robin's hard work and energy....ash in the wind now.

This sweet robin watches us from his perch in a tree at the edge of the field. I like to think he's giving me his stamp of approval.

When there is only carbon and white ash remaining we leave the smouldering heap

and return to the house to cool down. We sit in late afternoon sun sipping glasses of  fizzy water poured over ice cubes

and fresh mint leaves picked from the bed of herbs in the kitchen garden. Better than G&T.

Although I drive away with my hands stiff from feeding the fire, my hair and my clothes reeking of smoke, I feel lighter and clearer. Another ending ....making space for I don't know what ...but space anyway.

Later at home, when I go out into the garden to pick up the fallen apples on the grass, this constant robin flies down

from the rose bush still rambling over the fence, and stays near me on the path for a little while - long enough for me to fetch the camera....reminding me....blessing me with the Love that never dies.

 And another blessing - the sunset tonight....

a fire in the sky....burning up the day.

Late Autumn Butteriness and an Intricate Spider's Web

You could spread the velvet butteriness of this late autumn rose on your toast .....or drink the nectar of light it cups between its petals.

I wish it was growing in my garden but all my roses are over. This afternoon I pruned back their straggly prickly stems...and dead headed the geraniums....and swept up the red and gold leaves of the creeping Russian vine scattered on the grass....and cut the lawn....with the surprise of sun hot on my neck.

Later I sorted through boxes of archived financial papers in Robin's office...not always sure what to throw away and what to keep. ....constantly flooded with gratitude for the work he did to make sure we would be safe.....his familiar handwriting plunging me back into the intircate spider's web of our money history..

And now because I lay awake many hours in the night...with those 3am worries ballooning into the dark...I'm fragile tired and headachy empty. 

Affogato Without Drowning

My sweet great niece

filling her heart basket with cherry tomatoes

and chilli peppers

in her grandmother's green house

on Saturday.

Today

Lunch with a friend. 

After mediocre macaroni cheese,

Let's have a dessert.

On the menu is

Affogato. 

What's that?

I know what it is

but I've never eaten or made it.

Scoops of vanilla

ice cream 

drowned 

in

a  tiny

hot 

expresso coffee.

I don't like the

bitterness of expresso coffee

and never drink it

so I don't know why I ordered it.

Not listening to my inner wisdom.

But sometimes now I do listen.

And I let myself 

weep

for the bitterness

of my

loss.

Without

drowning 

in it.

The ice cream moon tonight outside my window.

Images of Hong Kong and La Boheme

Images from the Botanical Gardens and Aviary in HongKong....

and leaving Hong Kong on the way to the airport...

Today

I've just come back from a live screening of Puccini's La Boheme from The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The first new production for 43 years. The sets were marvellous - snowy Paris in the 1890s....a group of  young bohemian artists starving in a garret....unrequited love....passion....jealousy... high drama....famous arias " your tiny hand is frozen"....dying from consumption....tragic loss and regret.....and the music swirling all around them like the snowflakes...beautiful....heartbreaking.

My Grandfather's Grave...Another Coffee Cake..and Dropping the Ceramics

The main reason for stopping over in Hong Kong on our way back from Fiji was to visit our grandfather's grave - our father's father. He had been a missionary in China and died in Hong Kong in 1948. 

We got a taxi from the hotel to Electric Road and the Hong Kong cemetery - although it's surrounded by high rise buildings in the middle of the city I found it green and peaceful and timeless.

Luckily other members of our extended family have visited the grave over the years so we had details and directions about how to locate it in amongst all the others. It wasn't too badly overgrown or neglected,

and while we cleared away some of the weeds this sweet little sparrow hopped  onto the concrete surround and stayed a few moments....

 I liked to think it was the spirit of my grandfather coming to say hello. 

We tried to clean the inscription with my sister's wet wipes...not very successfully.

It says -

John R Temple (1885 - 1948)

Methodist Minister in China 1910 - 1923

General Secretary

British & Foreign Bible Society 1931 -1948

With Christ which is far better.

We found a glass bottle near by and filled it with leaves and wild flowers 

and laid this little bouquet on the bible at the end of the grave which was added for my grandmother  after she died.

My grandfather was 63 - the same age as Robin -  making my grandmother a widow at the same age as me. I didn't have to go through what she did though - the shock of her husband dying in another county half way round the world with no chance to say goodbye.

Here I'm holding a photo of my father in this same pose when he came to visit in 1977.

As it was unbearably hot and sticky we returned to the hotel and had a sumptuous lunch followed by this plate of desserts.....the Chinese do tiny and delicate to perfection.

On Saturday I made another coffee and walnut cake - using a different recipe -  having abandoned  the one I made the other day - knowing it really wasn't up to par. 

I was pleased with the even rise and proper sponge texture of this one.....although I realise I hardly ever make traditional cakes any more ( I found the butter icing on this one incredibly sweet) but as it was for my brother-in -law who is a traditionalist, and it was for his delayed birthday, I did it anyway. It reminded me of when I used to bake and sell cakes for the WI in the 1980's! 

 For supper I made my traditional  apple Tart Tatin....also very sweet but a totally reliable recipe.....the secret is using my own apples of course .....

Today

I peeled and cored and sliced and cooked up three huge saucepans of apples for the freezer ....sweet as can be with out a spoonful of sugar in sight.

This afternoon, while I was doing some sorting and clearing in Robin's office I slipped on one of those plastic folders I'd left lying on the carpet and I dropped the box of  his ceramics that I was carrying...smashing some of the contents into little pieces..... a  bronze painted creature with lots of  spindly legs....

I wanted so much to say sorry to him....and had to forgive myself instead.....which took a  little while.

Thankfully this wasn't the one I dropped.