A familiar face .

Riding in the car , chat and companionable silence . I have a pad and pen on my lap and an old A5 book I am consulting .

Two crows are in conference facing each other on a branch . They nod at one another .

Further down the road two  more crows pace . They look as if their hands are behind their backs and are dressed like old fashioned school masters , but no mortar boards - I looked .

I go back to the hard backed book but ponder the crows conferring and pacing .

I began to put recipes from old books or was given in a hard backed  book when I was 18 . I am now on my 23rd volume .
The early ones have my maiden name on the cover and later ones the married one .

It was an early volume I was consulting in the car .
Oh , all the recipes , menus and ideas for meals I had forgotten !
All the asides that had nothing to do with cookery . I was making notes of things to revisit and cook again .

I confer with the books like a crow and pacing down this road I see some one walking in the opposite direction towards me . As we get closer I can make out her features .
 She is the young woman who wrote these books .

Amongst the pages she confides an occasional sadness or frustration , Mostly though I can see , clear sighted , that this slight figure with her quirky clothes and long blond hair is fearless . Her work is high powered and challenging but she balances that in the kitchen making pies , chutney , marmalade .
I know that sometimes she worries she may loose the oomph or opportunity to be creative in the kitchen .

The crows look beadily at the two of us . I smile at her  .
 Its all I can do ,  for I cannot tell her that she has some great joys to come and just a few things she is better off not knowing about before hand .
I cannot tell her " your hand writing is my hand writing and I made tangerine marmalade the other day .