My Cookathon

Just before I sliced into this chestnut mushroom I noticed how beautiful it was - its little while collar like the petals of a flower,  a ruff round its neck - the  lapping pattern of it repeated all round the warm brown skin covering the soft bulb of its body.

I've been cooking all afternoon, the rain thundering on the plastic roof, and well into the night. I say cooking but that's only a very small part of all the hours I spend in the kitchen.....it's the clearing up and the dealing with the unexpected things that go awry that takes the time too. Like when the butter that I'd smeared around the inside of the two loose bottomed cake tins containing the Polenta Almond Shortbread, dripped onto the bottom of the oven and created acrid smoke and that awful burned fat aroma seeping into everything. It's not as if I didn't know that would happen....just forgot somehow.

And I didn't even have to wash up as my wonderful husband is doing it now.....the whole  jumbled mountain  of it.

My cookathon is for tomorrow  - making lunch to take to my husband's family in Surrey ( the mushrooms for pizza toppings).....staying overnight with friends..... we are going away next week too ....up to Sheffield for my Uncle's funeral, so this will be the last blog for a while.

The Furnace And The Phoenix

A young Phoenix

Lost for words tonight......so just three blessings from my day.....

So grateful for ....

all the love round the birthday lunch table.....deep in the scrumptious soup, buried in the garlicky hummus, in the freshness of the salads, in the sweetness of the mango and in the softness of the Indian Barfi dessert....in our care for each other.

So grateful for.....

the gentle fingers of the osteopath friend who massages away the tension and pain in the ropey  muscles of my pelvis, my back, my hip....giving me relief, release.

So grateful for....

the gift of a coaching session from a wise and gentle friend who shines a light into the old fossils of my beliefs of  - 

nothing I do makes any difference 

and 

go away, leave me alone, I don't need you.

And gives me a candle to hold instead - the light of my own goodness...

something to shine into the relationship with my husband......allow him to contribute to me - to be the furnace where my phoenix will be fashioned....

Hot Bread Heaven

We haven't been to the allotment for months.This morning in bright sunshine we make a little tour of it. I feel dismayed, overwhelmed by the brokenness of it. My husband looks broken by the loss of his capacity to do anything about it. My sister says it's not nearly as bad as we think and lots of it is rescuable - especially the gold mine of the asparagus beds.  We leave my  husband there clearing out the dead sticks of the tomato plants in the green house and pulling up the tall poles of the Jerusalem artichokes....

This is my version of Yotam Ottolenghi's Red cabbage and Beetroot Slaw that I make for our lunch to share. I replace his apricots with apples and golden sultanas, his poppy seeds with sesame, and leave out the dill and cinnamon all together but add grated fresh turmeric along with the grated fresh ginger. My Pomegrante Molasses and grassy green Palestinian olive oil give it that bright Middle Eastern kick.It's the sort of recipe that'll be different every time depending what you have in the fridge....

Before lunch at our friend's house, she gives us a bread making lesson....I love standing round her kitchen table - three women with our hands in bowls of flour stirring, and mixing then kneading .....drinking tea and talking while our dough balls balloon up under their cling film wrap on the radiator.....and later, after the second kneading and proving, we tuck in to deep bowls of  barley vegetable soup and crunchy salads serenaded by the aroma of six loaves of hot baking bread in the oven.

I hold out as long as possible when I get home with my two floury wholemeal loaves studded with pumpkin and sunflower seeds but the tantalising smell of warm fresh bread is too much to resist and I give in to chewy, buttery Marmite heaven....

......watching the sun go down over the hills beyond our city garden....

thinking I may not need any supper now.

Valentine's Spikes

 Spikes everywhere on Valentine's Day - we spend it at Tyntesfield House - a Victorian National Trust property outside Bristol.  When I read the history of the house to my husband he thinks it's very amusing that the family who owned it made their money selling South American guano  - or bird poo to him.

 The spikes of a monkey Puzzle tree in the grounds.....

the same colour as this lime in the glass orangerie.

 The barn door was open on these forks and spades in a row in

 the walled vegetable garden...these espaliered fruit trees like painted ghostly skeletons on the warm bricks.

Gold cock weather vane..... more spikes....

has the best view above the jumble of roof tops of the house and the chapel.

My first snowdrop photos this year....

 fresh white clumps, adorning the steep banks in the garden at Tyntesfield.

Our Valentine's supper -  we were going to make it together but my husband was too knackered after long drive back down the M5 on the first day of half term. He was triggered -  in an emotional turmoil all the way -  by ambulances and accidents and incidents and road works and the music on the radio. I was triggered by his responses - exhausting myself with irritation - imagining he could be some other way - letting the spikes of it all get under my skin - forgetting he's at the effect of his puzzling disease - forgetting to be kind to myself.

 Back home I made two pizzas - so easy with a scone base - this is the veggie version for me ....the same as my husband's but without the Chorizo sausage. While he slept I sat on a high stool at the cooker, reading the Saturday Guardian and stirring a pot of rice pudding like a sweet creamy risotto - soothing away all the sharp, raw edges of the day......

 remembering Valentine's night last year at Lake Tekapo, NZ........when I wanted to stay outside after our restaurant supper and watch the moon rising but my husband wanted to leave.

A Gift of Coleslaw

A friend comes to visit with this gift of Beetroot, Red Cabbage and Carrot Slaw made by her young neighbour from a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe which he cut out from a Sunday newspaper. 

It's packed with sweet sour pungent flavour, crisp and soft and a glorious deep claret colour. We have it for supper along with a seriously Cheddar cheesy and spring onion omelette,  crunchy roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips, velvet sweet slow cooked leeks and my current favourite greens - Purple  Sprouting Broccoli  - jazzed up with ginger, garlic ( beautifully finely chopped by my husband who is great sous chef) and crushed pecan nuts ( American, in this case) fried in coconut oil and stirred into the greens.

 As my friend is a fantastic cook and expert in Asian cuisine she buys us these Mini Egg Tarts from the Chinese supermarket by the car park on our way home from our Lebanese cafe lunch in town. She recommends the best Thai coconut milk and prawn crackers to buy and now I've found a supply of fresh turmeric and galangal....so I'll be going back there. Going back for more little tarts as well as I might just have found a new melt in the mouth addiction ( my current one is the Portuguese custard tart - Pastel de Nata) so thank goodness they are tiny....

This is the recipe for the Beetroot and Red Cabbage Slaw http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/11/spiced-lamb-shanks-recipe-ottolengh- luckily I bought a small red cabbage and six beetroots in the market on Thursday so I'll be making my own version - thinking I'll use the Lebanese Pomegranate Molasses from Beirut that my niece gave me instead of sherry vinegar and maple syrup for that sweet sour touch.

My husband doesn't know what Valentine's Day is but I've said we'll make pizza together tomorrow night - just another way to be friendly.

Muddle in my Mind

Brave words yesterday about loving and living alongside my back pain...worse than ever this morning - I make time for gentle stretching but not for much listening or consenting....but do make appointment to see lovely body worker with magic hands next week.....notice my habit of wanting instant results.....

The kitchen table is covered with stacks of files and papers and my toppling In-tray and Pending Tray, and Money Tray and Urgent Action Tray and my wonderful sister is sorting and filing and throwing away - one piece of paper at a time - helping me bring order to my neglected muddled systems.

  But really she's helping me to separate out the muddle in my mind -  all the things that are bothering me - like having a Carers's Assessment for me and my husband's needs which includes a financial review - and working out the things I can do something about now, and all the things that aren't in my control and can't do anything about yet. So no need to spend so much time worrying about them. Another habit to  start giving my consent to. I think I read somewhere that lower back pain can be associated with loss of financial support or fear of it anyway.....mmmmmm.

Tonight I decorate the orange glazed Lemon Polenta Cake with little white chocolate stars and the sweet open buds of Narcissi and take it to the big warm circle of our Deeksha mediation group. We are celebrating the birthday of one dear friend and celebrating the life of another dear friend who passed away yesterday. I think he might have had a snooze during the mediation but he would have enjoyed the cake and the flowers.... and all of us remembering him with love.

Giving My Consent

Mount Cook, New Zealand

I was very shocked to hear that a friend died this morning, quite suddenly - a dear, sweet man who was an integral part of our Deeksha meditation community and was always unfailingly kind to me and my husband.  He's the one who sent us a Christmas card with the beautiful words of Tagore on the front - 

Faith is the bird that sings to the dawn while it is still dark.

Words that will always be associated now in my mind with him.

This morning I took my nourishment collage to my lovely Family Constellations therapist - she had suggested I  make it - and unravelled some of the images. She asked me what was missing there too - I identified relaxation, Mindfulness, being present, loving touch.

 I thought that Saying No to things would somehow give me more time  - time to nourish myself. But I discovered there is a stage before that - in the inward journey -  when you encounter pain or loss - Saying Yes to what is already so - accepting it -  is the first step to healing it.

Bert Hellinger ( the  founder author of Family Constellation work) uses a brilliant word instead of accepting - which I think has connotations of doing something I don't really want to - he talks about giving your consent, agreeing to the pain instead of trying to get rid of it, finding out what it's trying to tell you.

I've had lower back pain all my life - sometimes it's worse than others and stops me gardening or hoovering or bending down at all. Mostly I ignore it and put up with it, wait for it to improve.

So today for the first time I had a guided conversation with my back pain which was actually really angry about being ignored and not given any attention, any love or support. And I realised the enormous cost of not listening to my body at all. A good place to start nourishing myself -  loving my back pain - however odd that sounds.

 I felt lighter after the session, my back pain is still there but it feels different somehow - giving it my consent instead of feeling invaded by it.....living alongside it instead of against it.....wanting to have more conversations with it - giving it what everyone one wants  - love and attention.

And now it's saying GO TO BED - so I'm listening at last....