Wonderful Women

Wednesday 24th November

Day 217

It’s hard to type with freezing fingers. My forefinger is blue and numb. I need to warm up as we are going to the late showing of Harry Potter tonight.

Last blog for a week - leaving the house at 5 am on Friday - lovely husband will drive me to the airport. Two dear sisters to meet me at the other end. I’m planning to pack a swimming costume and a cagoule as there are mostly little grey cloud pictures dropping blue rain tears on the internet weather forecast for the Algarve.

Today I’m so grateful for all the wonderful women who share my life - each one a rare and beautiful gift . I feel truly sustained and nourished by their delicious friendship. My life would be thin without them.

Savouring

Tuesday 23rd November

Day 216

My dear friend who I haven’t seen since April - as we now live in cities apart - reminds me that it is possible to taste my life in the same way as I savour my food - appreciating each mouthful. Instead of bolting it down in hurry which has become my habit. She is wise and right about this. We are in a glass restaurant in Salisbury, lingering over plates of baked shell pink trout, sprinkled with capers. Easy to enjoy in good company.

On the way home, waiting for my train at Westbury station I have time to drink in the glory of the sky which is glowing a deep pomegranate pink. Nothing to do except watch it, let it melt into me like waves breaking and sinking into sand. I remember that in a few days time I will be walking on a beach in Portugal where the sunsets are like nightly fires . But this gentle pink one is the gift I can absorb right now.

Being in the precious moment - a new practice. I noticed - too late - how quickly I ate my avocado pear tonight worrying about packing instead of relishing.

I’m so grateful tomorrow is another day - another chance to practise savouring.

Cat's Cradle in the Kitchen

Monday 22nd November

Day 215

Although there are a dozen other things on my to do list today, apart from cooking, I stay in the fug of the kitchen for hours, weaving a cat’s cradle between the sink and the hob, the oven and the fridge, the table and the telephone. Outside the sky hangs heavy above the garden, a leaden grey veil not even stirring the damp clothes on the line next door.

Now I have my day’s work lined up on the counter - twelve jars of Tomatillo and Cape Gooseberry Chutney, a Christmas cake, still warm in it’s tin, wrapped in a tall brown paper collar, a honey glazed Chocolate Banana Cake, ten round plastic tubs of Chickpea and Coconut Curry and Mushroom and Tomato Risotto for my father and a bowl of chopped almonds for tomorrow’s flapjack. And most of the washing up done.

Today I’m forever grateful for our hot water. Thank you to the wonderful man who fitted our new boiler so now I can wash up a whole stack of dirty pots without ranting in frustration when the water runs cold after only a few minutes. And I didn’t have to carry it from a well in the ground either.

Stir Up Sunday

Sunday 21st November

Day 214

Traditionally it is Stir Up Sunday today - the day to make your Christmas pudding when all members of the family, right down to the smallest, take turns stirring the sticky mixture.

For us it’s Stir Up Chutney Sunday. I want to use up all the bowls of unripe allotment produce which have been hanging around in the fridge for far too long - grass green tomatillos, squashy, pale orange cape gooseberries, wrinkly skinned apples, tiny sprouting onions, even smaller bulbs of garlic.

It’s cold, damp, overcast and bleak outside. My husband puts on a CD that we bought in New York - a jazz quartet we watched playing in Central Park on our first warm blue day there. And we start chopping - the chillis and shallots stinging our eyes. Soon we have two pans bubbling on the stove, the smell of vinegar and allspice rippling through the kitchen.

While my husband paints his clay model dragon, I weigh out the dried fruit for the Christmas cake and leave it soaking in several glugs of brandy. I’ll cook it tomorrow - keeping up my own tradition. Only one cake this year - I used to make one for my mother who liked marzipan but not royal icing on hers. I’ll remember her though, when I’m stirring up the sticky mixture.

Today I’m grateful for my store cupboards - stuffed full with packets of raisins and almonds, glace cherries and apricots - and that I have a wonderful family who will share my Christmas.

Looming

Saturday 20th November

Day 213

This morning we don’t get up and go our usual separate morning routine ways. I make tea and we linger in bed and remember last night at the gallery and talk the details of our day.

I relish the delicious feeling of the ordinariness in my day - putting the kitchen back in order, washing the wine glasses and big plates, planning supper, maybe we’ll make the tomatillo chutney this afternoon. No deadlines hurtling towards me. Nothing looming on my horizon to disturb my dreams.

I notice how when I let something loom - an event like last night - or Christmas even - how distracted I am in the present - what a busy bee I am - squishing out pussy cat stroking time, husband listening time, reading and walking time, watching the birds time. Missing the sweetness of my life on the altar of tomorrow.

Now the aroma of roasting carrots and artichokes, potatoes and parsnips is swirling up the stairs telling me it’s time to put the trout in the oven and peel the sprouts. Time to sit down to supper with my lovely husband and linger under the duvet of Saturday night at home.

I’m so grateful for my dictionary - for expanding my language horizon....

To loom: to come into sight indistinctly, in enlarged or distorted or menacing form.

Wild and Wonderful

Friday 19th November

Day 212

It was a wild and stormy night.... Every time someone pushed open the glass door into the brightly lit studio with a dripping umbrella and a wide smile, shaking the rain from their coats, I felt so happy. We’d been waiting for them to arrive and view my husband’s wild and wonderful clay creatures displayed on tall pedestals and white painted brick walls. At 7.30 - opening time - we were still a huddled family group - a drop in the echoey ocean of the gallery, holding our wine glasses, picking at crisps and olives, making small talk.

‘I’ve over-catered,’ I thought looking at the laden table of food I’d been making all day. What will I do with all these plates of smoked salmon triangles, these sesame cheese thins, these chocolate brownies and cranberry flapjacks, if nobody comes?

But in the end they all came - those dear friends, flooding in from the night - and warmed the ocean space with their generous talking and laughing, clinking of glasses and sampling of sandwiches. And even buying some of my husband’s wild and wonderful creatures, leaving a little red dot on a tall white pedestal. And a huge splash of gratitude in my heart.

Jacob's Ladder

Thursday 18th November

Day 211

‘Let’s go faster,’ says my father.

My brother is steering him in a borrowed wheelchair. We are trundling along Sidmouth seafront. Sometimes my sister and I have to dart ahead and sweep the pebbles out of the way. The waves flung them up and scattered them across the path in Tuesday night’s storm. My brother runs carefully - as if he was in an egg and spoon race on sports day.

When we arrive at the end of the promenade the sun goes in and and the wind blows cold. Should we turn back or venture on to Jacob’s Ladder - round the red cliffs with the sea splashing over the rails and then up that steep winding hill? I look at my father, sitting in the chair with his orange scarf wrapped round his ears and under his cap - the cap he doesn’t like, the cap he wanted to leave behind in the bluebell wood in the spring - his big hands in my gloves, and I think it’s time to find a cafe for lunch.

‘I want to go on,’ he says.

‘It may be your last chance to see Jacob’s Ladder,’ says my sister, seizing the day. So we’ll remember this ninety first birthday.

‘ Yes, before I kick the bucket,’ he says.

And we wonder where that phrase comes from as we all three push him slowly up the hill.

Today I’m grateful for my brother and his glorious sense of humour. And that my father has a son as well as three daughters who can do most things for him - except accompany him to the gents in a time of urgent need.