Not Sure What I'm Eating

SATURDAY

The SW coastal path from Crackington Haven in North Cornwall where we walked on the second hottest day of the year.

The view from the summit totally worth the steep climb.

Foxgloves everywhere...

My husband surprised me...overcoming his usual 'only a short walk' stricture by leading us right to the furthest point of the cliff top, up and down the steepest path for  well over an hour and a half.....

with this elder growing by the stream we crossed -  flowering above us ....

and this small wild beauty in the grass beneath our feet.

SUNDAY

Lovely fishy lunch with my husband's aunty in her beautiful cottage garden....

delphiniums blue...

peony pink....

and calendula yellow.

TODAY

The sun hides behind a thick covering of cloud - late afternoon we walk through the peaceful gallery of trees at Killlerton House.....  tender new beech cob nuts .....

a fluttering of proud white star flowers.... forgotten what they're called.....

and a tawny purple maple which always make me think of autumn.

This is Robert Holden's thought for the day....

Shift Happens!

Daily Inspiration 16 June 2014

My friend Louise Hay says,
"How you start your day is how you live your day."
She also says,
"How you live your day is how you live your life."
Food for thought!

Today I started my day by loading the washing machine and then sitting with cup of hot lemon in a cloud of perfumed incense smoke listening to a visualisation recorded especially for me by a friend.....imagining I'm wearing a shining iridescent cloak of gossamer light - a cloak of hope and possibility. My day is wall to wall again... but calm.

Yesterday, I started my day, even before I boiled the kettle, by scrubbing at the grubby marks( probably splashed food)  on the pale mustard-yellow cushions of the sofa with Vanish Stain Remover.

Later, I lost it with my husband - got angry, tight tense, shouty, when he got confused about the time we were supposed to leave the house and I was afraid we would be late for lunch.....and hated myself ....and did lots of forgiving/loving - myself and him - in the car afterwards ....

Definitely food for thought..... but not sure what I'm eating....

End Of A Long Hot Day

If onions bolt before they are round and heavy, best to pick them and use the whole thing, green hollow stems as well - like a young leek.

I pulled these at the allotment this morning in the sweltering heat while my husband stuck supporting bamboo canes into the runner bean bed.

They are the inspiration for supper...  

and these purple pak choi......

beetle-holed but still full of juicy cabbagy flavour.

Perfect with hot beetroot and a garlicky coriander salsa verde to go with the cod loin I found in the freezer for supper.

 I loved all the buzzing heat of summer today - it makes me feel alive.  But tonight, instead of writing this blog and staying up late, I'm going to love myself and treat myself like I would a tired 5 year old - very gently -  by having a long hot bath after my long hot day and going to bed even though the sky is still pearly light outside.

My Wall to Wall Day

Summer lunch to share  - the last of the asparagus from the allotment - grilled and tossed with artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, avocados and Kalamata olives....

garnished with hardboiled eggs,walnuts, toasted pumpkin seeds and as much heavenly NZ lemon oil as I dare.

Hanging basket begonia,

and pelargonium on the patio this evening - still scorching hot at 6pm.

Hot hot hot today - 32 degrees in the car - the steering wheel too hot to touch when I drive home from lunch with two glorious women, sitting on a shady terrace surrounded with deep pink and red and apricot begonias, carnations, geraniums - we could be in the Mediterranean.

My day is wall to wall - you couldn't slip a playing card between the bricks of my hours - each one full and planned and cascading into the next.....

 Early morning yoga and rushed meditation.... boil the eggs for lunch....fruit breakfast with husband...visit the dentist to ask about  ESA form for  husband ... the building society to get a cheque to pay for my computer..... the farmers market which is cancelled......  so  walk to another organic shop  at end of town for bread and spinach....... Edinburgh Woollen Mill for a cotton shirt for my brother's birthday........ back home to make asparagus salad and leave a plate of lunch for my husband......nourishing terrace time with lovely women.......back home to collect husband and drive to Sidmouth for EFT session with helpful intuitive healer.

 Husband in negative place - doesn't want to walk by the sea after the session or even have an ice cream. Back home  - water hanging baskets..... get the washing in..... answer emails. Worry about husband withdrawing and getting isolated ....feel overwhelmed with hopelessness. Leave him in bed....drive to  Deeksha Meditation....embraced by circle of loving, caring friends ....music and late sunshine...fresh mint tea and flapjack. Back home husband makes supper - poached egg on toast and smoked salmon and I watch The Good Wife on TV while he plays Solitare upstairs on my iPad.

And now it's late late late and I was going to go to bed early.....breaking habits is hard hard hard - but not impossible. Thank goodness I have another chance tomorrow...

Steam and Lavender and Grace

The amazing, hot steam, sulphur and geyser landscape of Waiangu Volcanic Park in Rotorua,  NewZealand -  our first taste of North Island.

And bee hummed lavender....

in the garden of Moonlight Cottage, Cromwell, Central Otago where we stayed for 5 hot and glorious nights in February. 

When I come back this afternoon after three hours at the allotment- yanking up deep rooted weeds, planting purple sprouting broccoli and helping our gardner tie up the rambling blackberry -  I'm stiff and sunburnt. I rushed off after lunch leaving my husband to clear the plates, forgetting to take a hat or suncream. 

I know I have about an hour before my husband gets home after his walk with a dear friend in Holden Woods. Usually I'd reply to emails, start making supper, get the washing off the line, make phone calls....but I do something different instead.

I run a very hot bath and stir in several handfuls of Epsom Salts and some shakes of lavender oil. And  make myself stay in the fragrant steam for twenty minutes at least.

I'm practising a new idea which came out of my Family Constellation counselling session this morning. The one about taking care of myself - first. Listening to my inner voice, the one that knows that I need to have better sleep, that I need to give up comforting myself with sugar, that I need to let go of thinking I'm never enough.

 And let in the idea that, with Grace, I could live into a future, however unclear, of possibility and lightness. Instead of the one of darkness and decline which I'm living into at the moment. 

And Still He Doesn't Cry

In the park outside the Cafesjian Museum in Yerevan, Armenia.

Holding both his hands

I swing him off the mini trampoline

his feet touch the grass and 

then up we go again landing him

back on the sprung canvas floor

one two three -  on

 one two three -  off.

Then, because he's heavy and I'm getting tired, I say

How about some bunny jumps in the middle?

I crouch at the edge of the trampoline

he jumps

and 

bang

his head collides with mine

sharp tingling thud.

I hold him tight

his face in my neck

waiting for his scream.

Oh, I'm so sorry, I say,

the horror in my throat

like acid.

I let go of his hands

it's my fault.

I've hurt him. 

He doesn't make a sound.

 His grandma lifts him from me

holds him in her arms

talking to him all the time.

And I run a tissue under the tap 

to wipe the blood 

from his lip.

And still he doesn't cry.

 Then we all three sit on the sofa and he shows me a Peppa Pig game on his mini iPad,

his little finger moving across the screen, little chuckles in his throat - releasing me from my guilt, my  shame, with his huge, forgiving, three year old heart.

By The Fire

The birthday lunch....granary and French garlic bread..... green leaves grown by the birthday girl......  roasted veggies and spinach trottole (spiral?) pasta salad tossed in a gorgeous lemon oil ( we brought back from Cromwell, NZ) and a  syrupy blood orange balsamic vinegar dressing.....grilled Halloumi cheese, artichokes and olive salad..... emerald green Salsa Verde whizzed up by my niece's boyfriend.....a ginger and coriander brazil nut roast ( vegan, for my brother)..... asparagus ( grown by my husband) and gruyere tart...salmon and watercress quiche .......and an avocado, cherry tomato and fennel salad with a mustard French dressing.

 At the end of supper -  the Lemon Polenta Drizzle birthday cake....last of the tropical fruit salad from lunch, the pink poached nectarines and my big sister's chocolate coconut squares. Earlier in the day we  had another birthday cake  - Chocolate Almond  decorated with Blue Icing and a ring of Smarties. And three candles on it to blow out by my sweet great-nephew who nearly shares the same birthday as his grandma.

And of course the day wasn't only about the food....

From the early morning my brother kept this fire burning for us, up in the field above the house.

Before the air turned chilly we sat around it on upturned logs and cushions, keeping out of the way of the smoke, poking the red hot logs to bring back the flames,

remembering all the other times we have celebrated  special family birthdays around a fire like this on this beautiful and lovingly cared for piece of land deep in the Somerset/Devon borders.

I could have stayed by that evening fire forever, in the circle of my family, watching the flames leap and die....while my husband slept on and on in an upstairs bedroom, with the windows closed against the smoke of life.....too hot for him now in the fire of conversation....better for me to let him slumber in the softness of ashes.....rather than  always trying to poke him back out of the embers....

Birthday Mangoes and Marigolds

This morning I poach nectarines in pink elderflower syrup with strips of orange zest for my sister's birthday party tomorrow when all the family will gather to celebrate her 65th.....

Small rosy bottoms....

I've been waiting all week for this bowl of summer to ripen in my kitchen....

I bought these white 'donut" peaches in a Turkish grocer's ....

along with this pawpaw from Brazil and this mango from the Dominican Republic - waiting to be cut up for the tropical fruit salad ....the perfume of my African childhood on the kitchen table.

This afternoon my husband and I walk against the wind on the beach at Exmouth. This flag says it's dangerous to swim because of the strong currents...

but the wind surfers risk it...

I would too if I was a wind surfer....if I was young and strong.... on a perfect day like today.

We come home with a sprinkling of sand in our shoes....

This evening I go to the allotment to pick a bunch of marigolds the colour of mangoes and pawpaws....the perfume of the African childhood I share with my brother and my sisters who I'm so happy to see tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, dear Sister.