Lunch and Life at The Baobab Cafe

A robin lands on the first ceramic head Robin ever made...

she sits under the bird table and catches all the scatterings from 

the feeders above her.

 On my footpath walk the blackberries are still going strong....

but the wheat is long harvested...and I'm not sure what is now planted in this field.

Sheep and waterlilies ...

sharing the fishing lake which I can see through the trees at the end of my garden.

A pair of sparrows camouflaged  in 

hawthorn bushes....with such an abundance of berries to feast on.

Today my sister treats me to a fabulous Middle Eastern lunch at the Baobab Cafe in Crediton.( The Baobab Tree is also know as the Tree of Life.....and the source of cream of tartar. The  long hanging pods of the baobabs and their great towering girth were a familiar sight when I was growing up in Africa.)

 The main courses and big bowls of salads on the counter look delicious but  quite reliant on chickpeas and lentils. My gut is rather tender at the moment so when we ask if there is anything else, the delightful chef who is very experienced and  trained in Israel says" leave it with me."

 A few minutes later he invites us into the kitchen where he is tossing and stirring a small frying pan of a type of haricot beans, pink field mushrooms and Swiss chard stalks.We watch him magic up our lunch.... adding in slices of preserved lemon, fresh chopped herbs and a dollop of his homemade spiced tomato sauce.... talking all the while and giving us little things to taste, including the sweetest  bronze cherry tomatoes grown by the aquaponic system - he is a great supporter of all small local growers.

The end result, served with a beetroot and parsley tabouleh, is warming, delicately spiced and fragrant. 

We have hot chai to start with and another rich Arabic drink - frothy milk spiked with  cinnamon and clove, topped with coconut and raisins - a perfect accompaniment to our shared cakes - chocolate with rosewater icing and polenta and blueberry.

 We are totally inspired by this big hearted and generous chef...and his attitude to  life and family and food. And totally stuffed.

Needless to say I don't eat supper....but I'm determined to start being more adventurous with my cooking....once my gut calms down....gently does it for now.

Disappointment ....Postponement....Relief ...and the Ladybirds

It was like high summer in the garden today.

Today was the hottest October day in the UK since 2011....up to 23 degrees. I wear a floppy sunhat while I  weed and wait. I'm weeding the path and clearing the brambles and rampant ivy growing up around the big old gas tank in the front garden. 

I'm waiting for the Calor Gas engineers to come and replace the old tank with a new one.

 They are unavoidably delayed. In spite of my repeated requests to at least let me know if they are going to come at all, they never arrive.

It's been a long struggle and many phone calls to get this date in the dairy at all, so my disappointment is sharp.

 All day I've had the doors and windows wide open. Black flies and a flock of lady birds swarm in on a warm wind and settle on the ceiling and the walls.

Autumn leaves swirl in though the back door and litter the quarry tiles in the kitchen. I leave them there. And trust the ladybirds will find their way home.

And  finally, after much support and encouragement from my sisters, I make another phone call. This time to the fireplace people.  I postpone having the old fireplace ripped out and a wood burner installed. So I don't have to choose a fireplace surround under so much time pressure.

I will have it all - the fire and the surround - just not yet. I'm not ready to make these decisions from the shaky place I'm still in...still at a loss as to how to create my life here when I feel like a limb-less baby out of my cot most of the time.

I tell them I'm having a personal crisis. Which I am - a crisis of self doubt and unreadiness -  it's my way of buying time.

 Because there is more ground to nourish....there is still something to grow out of my doubt and uncertainty, my not knowing. And going through the barrier of ' I can't let people down' is all part of this growing. 

I feel so relieved ....and still uncertain ...but at least I can breathe again.

And because I love the symbols that constantly appear in my life ....like the ladybirds in the kitchen ...I look up the rhyme and see that I'm just like little Ann...hiding...watching...waiting ....trusting from the safety of the warming pan.

Ladybird ladybird fly away home,

your house is on fire,

your children all gone.

All except one,

and that's little Ann,

and she has crept under 

the warming pan.

....nourish the ground.

Today it is easy to set  aside the mess and the muddle.

A dear friend treats me to a sumptuous birthday mezze lunch in a cosy pub in a  sun drenched Dartmoor village ...autumn leaves falling all around us. I am truly nourished and blessed.

Later I walk with my camera around the gardens at Castle Drogo.... roses still flourishing in this October bonus warmth. Following in the familiar shadow footsteps of the many times I walked here with Robin.

I am also being nourished and helped by another birthday gift. A book called 

  The Way of Rest by Jeff Foster.

I haven't come across him before but his words have a flavour of Rumi in them.

He may become my new bible.

When I read this poem, Indecision it spoke to me immediately. I have been remembering it all day....  the mess and the muddle have been feeling much less of a burden....when I remember to breathe and nourish the ground where I stand...the wobbly wavering unknown unsafe ground inside me.

 Indecision by Jeff Foster

Friend, please,

do not try to decide now.

Do not shut any possibility out of your heart.

Honour this place of not knowing.

Bow before this bubbling mess of creativity.

Slow down. Breathe.

Sink into wonderment.

Befriend the very place where you stand.

Any decision will make itself, in time.

Any choice will happen when your defences are down.

Answers will appear only when they are ready.

When the questions have been fully honoured and loved.

Do not label this place "indecision".

It is more alive than that.

It is a place where possibilities grow.

It is a place where uncertainty is sacred.

There is courage in staying close.

There is strength in not knowing.

There is power in doubt.

Friend, please know,

there is simply no choice now.

Except to breathe and breathe again,

and trust this Intelligence beyond mind.

A decision will grow, but for today nourish the ground.

Birthday Love and Mess and Muddle

Birthday at  beautiful, bleak and wind-swept Budleigh... in the company of flocks of Canada geese and crows.

I'm overwhelmed with marvellous messages and cards and calls and gifts...feeling so loved and remembered....so touched by all the angels in my life.

And at the same time confounded by despair and confusion, headless chicken exhaustion and cul de sac tunnels.... all focused on replacing a fireplace in my living room. 

It appears I can't have the one I want.

 All substitutes are a compromise.

I'm trying to replace my old life with a new one. 

 Attempting to build a hearth at the centre of my home

  before I've laid my emptiness  to rest.

So all is mess and muddle in my head and in my heart.

 And the granite and limestone of the fireplaces stay in the showrooms

 while every night I burn logs in the open grate

 of the slate and cement fireplace I have inherited.

And let the white ash pile up in the hearth

in soft spent heaps.