Surprising myself .

So a new life is beginning to unfold . A stroll to the town to buy ingredients . New books to read . Enticing creative projects . The prospect of adventures by train , coach and country bus .

The ills that beset us have been dealt with pills . More or less pills may or may not follow but that does not matter . What matters is the baking of rock buns ,violets and bluebells in the garden . The thought that the gosgog bush may yield us a crop and the black currant too . Putting on an outfit with a bit of sass .

Springtime you see ( or whatever season is there to be relished ) . A daily round of meals cooked , walks taken , books read . Looking at world class art , Radio Three and Radio Four . A good nib and some nice paper .

A life that is  civilised and largely autonomous . Little treats and happy habits every day .

Constance Gray writes in her famous cookery book " Honey from a weed " : " there was a time when the satisfaction of performing practical tasks was valued as one of the ways to give meaning to our lives ."
She says further " without work the vessel of human life lacks ballast ."

She is not talking about dull drudgery , she means putting real heart into your life . The means at the forefront of her comments is cooking . Of course though there is walking and appreciating each season as it comes . Being creative and enjoying intellectual stimulus of one sort and another are essential too I think .

Mark Boyle talking in his book the " Moneyless Manifesto " says " each of us knows there is a story more sublime , more dignified , more glorious than numbers "

He means values that do not include money .

I am beginning slowly to join the dots in our new life . It's already there in small ways . When somebody does me a good turn I bake them a cake .If I make chutney , marmalade or jam I do it in big quantities . A jar goes to each person who supplied me with jars . I enjoy it and the rest is for swaps or  a thank you of a different sort .

The car was sold yesterday and oddly there is a serenity in that . Now we know where we are ( for six months or a year at least ) . There are different ways of doing things now .

A familiar face : part two . (see previous post first )

So , the doctor said the saxophonist had done so well he did not need so many pills including the ones to prevent seizures . So ,  that was two seizures and two days in hospital . He's home and has been told he cannot drive for a time at least .

I'm calming down and learning to trust that all is well again .

Obviously that means pleasures that don't include a car .

 I thought back to when I was single and using coaches , buses , trains and walking a lot . I went all over the place and didn't trouble about a  car .
 Fewer trips and more adventures .

 I thought about time at the library to browse , time in the charity shops for hunting out the odd gem , striding out along the river and of course there is time to cook in leisured contentment .

So ,  re previous post .
How odd is that . I am not only meeting the person walking down the road towards me , we are fusing into one .
I shall be making pineapple marmalade this week and this time she knows it .

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 .

Two posts for the price of one .

Healing is a strange thing isn't it ?
 I was thinking about that whilst I was reading an essay that Phillip Pullman wrote to accompany , so to speak , an exhibition at the Ashmolean concerning talismans , amulets , charms and other things with and without magical properties . ( The Oxford exhibition was called " spellbound "and ran till the 6th of January ).
He makes the point that though he is a rationalist and a humanist , he , as a fiction writer ( and sensible )likes to pay attention to things that he comes across including the uncanny and  the mysterious . He quotes physicist Niels Bohr who when asked why a horse shoe hung over his laboratory door claimed he did not believe it worked but had been told that it worked whether he believed it or not .
Pullman says that reason is the wrong tool to understand such things because " its like trying to pick up something made of wood by using a magnet ".

I said to myself that I had never happened upon a word that explained what was known by some people but never mentioned , lay beneath the surface or was hidden in plain sight .
There are many hundreds of people who dress up , call themselves foolish names and kid people or frighten them but whats actually real is as  natural as breathing .

Somewhere between the layers of pills , respirators and goverment guide lines ( and these are all useful except perhaps the last ) lies another hidden layer . Yes its common sense and its good luck too but there's something else in the mix . It isn't love ,it isn't relief . It has a distinct sound all of its own  .
Yesterday when we stood , he with his arms about me , looking out at the lights from the far harbour playing on the water I heard it again .


Since the saxophonist came home I have upped the bold flavours we enjoy ( one of the first things he said to the nurse when he regained his senses was " sorry I'm not eating that ").

So a drive to an Indian quarter in outer London .

Again we were the only white faces I saw the whole time we were there .
We went to my favourite samosa shop .Their's are the cheapest but more importantly the best I've ever tasted . They like us there  - last time it was free extra samosas and this time free samples and discounts on the little cubes of sweet meats they sell . I asked what sold best and he smiled and said try this and now try this .
The first was soft and creamy with a huge hit of butterscotch . The other was full of nuts and once you had swallowed it a warming taste of ginger suffused your mouth .

At the Indian supermarket I bought all the usuals from the huge piles laid outside : garlic , ginger , coriander , lemons and some fat , fat tangerines to make marmalade .
 Inside I bought handfuls of various chilli's , big packets of spices it's hard to find elsewhere  , set yoghurt in little sealed buckets with handles and charred flat breads .

Driving away the whole car smelt  of delights to come . You have to know what you are doing of course if you're making your own spice mixes .
Alchemy I suppose of a sort .

Why do we see no white people there ? Is it because we are open to another alchemy apart from cooking .A way of being or thinking maybe .

I think what we felt on the shore line and when we grinned at the lovely tastes in our mouths as we tried the free sweeties in the  Indian shop are growing from the same root .

If true alchemy exists and an older hidden order exists in the air then it's there for the curious , the open minded and those not afraid to love unreservedly never mind the advice of others or experiences of the past suggest we should .

As I write there is a lovely tangerine smell coming out of the pores of my hands .I've  made the tangerine marmalade .All the forms of alchemy eh ?

I shall put my tangerine scented hands to the saxophonists face as I kiss him later on ........... alchemy ........

Seduce me again ...

So the saxophonist went to see the consultant yesterday . We did not talk about it much , when he went out I pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep .

We have been building this new ,  home based , life brick by brick and much of it is very good .The seductive landscape was consigned to the box marked  " happy memories ".

The consultant wrong footed us both . They did tests , scans and in depth questions .
They told him that the only residue from the heart attack and coma are a slight scarring of the heart which will clear in time plus a tendency to misplace the odd word or place name . They told him that he can drive again .

I swore and shook my fist at the new sewing machine , got the hang of it and then made a cover for it and a new tea cosy .
Then I got out the five linen dresses I bought last summer that needed the straps shortened ( I'm shorter than some ) . I have machined them so they swish and don't drag .

So there I will be , swishing out into the seductive landscape again .

I thought I couldn't ask for anymore than the saxophonist back by my side but it seems I got given it anyway .

My spirits soar as I remember the estuaries and seascapes we can inhabit again .

I had seen myself walking slowly , in measured fashion , into the future .

 Fuck it . I'm going to sprint down the beach and then brazenly stop and let the saxophonist catch me .

Concerning birds and buns .

The still water shivers with a ripple . Leaves that remain on the tree are like black lace or have been bitten round the edges by the cold .

Black silhouettes soar the sky . A contented lone figure strolls by the river , hands deep in pockets ,  she is planning some baking .

She grins and heads back up the hill in pursuit of the smell of freshly baked rock buns .

The zietgeist of the common potato .

ME: " I am sitting here in the middle of this potato field collecting potatoes that the farmer has missed . I rub off the worst of the mud and hold up the hem of my hessian dress to collect enough for us to eat today . The dress itself is made from a potato sack " .

YOU: " What ? " .

ME: " Its cold out here and my makeshift shoes are oozing water " .

YOU: "Now you have overcooked it " . "You were doing OK until we got to the potato sack but you totally blew it with the shoes ". "Unless makeshift shoes are part of the fashion zietgeist on the street at the moment there's not a chance in hell that ....

ME: "Alright , alright perhaps I'm not actually in a potato field at the moment ".

YOU: "What's this all about " .

ME: "Simplicity and a return to basic values " . "It's about how classic design is often simple design : a Zippo lighter , a Bic biro , a nineteen twenties Singer sewing machine " .

YOU: "Ah" . "Let me stop you there , I know what this is about " .

ME: "Oh ".

YOU: Yes , I've heard you bang on about classic design before but the sewing machine is a new one " . " Am I anywhere close ? "

ME:  " NO ! " " Well yes actually " .

YOU: "Go on then  run it past me " .

ME: " Well I wrote about how we were cooking and eating all our meals at home , that I was reading more and that I was doing more craft projects " . "It's sort of led on from there " .

YOU:  " And ? "

ME: " I 'd like to get an allotment and grow my own veg and I'd like to alter , repair and make clothes to my own design " .

YOU: " And have you done anything about this ?"

ME: " Yep , I've bought a nineteen twenties singer sewing machine " .

YOU: " Manual " ,

ME: "YES and it's beautiful . " It came yesterday , it's cast iron and painted black and gold " . " It has all the original gadgets and instruction book and a heavy wooden case like an old fashioned attache case " ." I've used one before ". " It feels like a real possession as few things that I've owned before . It has real heft . Genuine weight . It  is heavy but it is also heavy with potential and my intent . I can make things precisely to my specifications and my own style . There will be a sense of achievement and something to put on my back against the cold " .

YOU: " Oh God , we're not going back to the potato field are we ? "

ME: "No " . " It could easily be a cheeky little sundress , in fact that is probably a good simple way to start " .

YOU: " Well we await developments " .

ME: " Paper patterns , potatoes all the essence of simplicity in their way ......

YOU: "Enough ! " "Just let me know how you get on and leave out any twaddle about vegetables , OK ? "

ME: " Fair enough ".