A perfect drying (out) day

Yesterday I was thwarted in my plans for a golden Monday, picking vegetables and ambling down lanes...by a call from work to say I had to be on the next train. Boo. So today, I was more than pleased to wake to a dazzling blue sky and a free day at my feet. Every perfect Dunbar day begins with hanging out some stripy washing in the breeze; I made some soup with foraged courgettes and pumpkin, then trotted up to the disappointingly busy pool. The sun outshone the southern schoolchildren, still off the leash, and I roasted myself to a fetching shade of puce in the sauna.

After a summer of festivities, it feels like time to simplify; to replace wine with tea, and crisps with soup, (and a side serving of milk thistle.) Focusing on what I put inside myself reminds me to get out my Nicola dishes. Dinner is too big (of course) to fit in these ladylike bowls, so the rather more sustaining fish and bread are discreetly out of shot.

After dinner, we did our watering duty at the community garden (and brought home a few more courgettes) then finished off the day with some fruity, seedy scones, the first baked in my new (to me) Aga.  A new story for bedtime arrived in this morning's post; not sure who's more excited...

Body and soul

For about a week, I find it impossible to use my dishes, because when I pick them up, they make me think about myself, and thinking about myself reminds me of what's happening.

Normal time is suspended, partly because I keep standing still and staring at nothing.

And now that it's over, I have come back home, and we start to build, reluctantly, a life without her.
My bowl is often empty, because my throat is too tight for much of the day.  Other people force themselves to eat,  "to keep body and soul together". It never occurred to me until now what that phrase means, and every time I hear it, I am horrified.  Because I have enough reserves to last me many months, I don't need to eat when I'm not hungry, and when my flesh begins, very slightly, to diminish, it feels appropriate, because I am lessened by this loss.

The cup, however, is never empty for long. Rivers of tea help during the day.
And by evening, something fruitier.

If anyone feels this is an inappropriate drink for today, then by heck, they didn't know my sister.

Keeping my head above water

The reason it took me a while to get started with this, and why there are so many days missing, is that news of illness in the family has hit us a bit like a torpedo whooshing into a submarine's side.

For a week or so, I completely forgot to use my bowl, as my focus on my "self" inevitably trickled away.  The emphasis moves to survival, and once again, it's not about me.

But spending a couple of days back at home, I made some smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, which didn't quite fit in the bowl, but pudding did - and there it is, above.

Despite all the goodness, I developed a headache in the afternoon - brought on by trying not to cry, then deep frowns when the trying failed. So I had to bring in a trusty friend, Berocca.

We lit a fire to burn off the haar in the evening, and the cup and bowl were host to red wine and chocolate popcorn, and then the last of the cherries, which go surprisingly well with a Sicilian red.

This morning is our first properly wet day since we moved to Dunbar, and it's so misty we can't see the sea at all. We had to light lamps so that we could see our breakfast, and breakfast had to be suitably warming. Porridge with raspberries and toasted flax seeds.

It's not just using different dishes to the boys that is raising their hackles.

It's the precisely ten minutes spent uploading the pictures that is too much for them to spare.

Day one

I've known Nicola for a few years - we met through our mutual chum Stevie Jackson. He brought her round to mine for Easter Sunday dinner, if I remember rightly. We ate a lot of lamb and beans and got slightly hammered. 

Nicola is an artist who does beautiful things in places you might not expect. This is her website...
http://www.nadfly.com/

She invite me to take part in an event called ALL YOU NEED.  I quote her...


"ALL YOU NEED is a celebration and study of the rituals of food and eating within the wider context of our modern beliefs of what is "essential" in life."


18 of us, all women, took part in a dinner at the Briggait in Glasgow. We excavated a cup, a bowl and a spoon for each of us. They were made in Sweden and they are touched with real gold.  Everyone else chose theirs very carefully, but I just plumped for the set that was furthest to the left. I doubt that I was the furthest, politically speaking, to the left of the assembled company, but I do still try.

We ate together and I landed very lucky with some very cool chicks - something about the atmosphere made us exchange some rather startling truths, and I left wanting to know more.


So I took my cup, my bowl and my spoon back to the seaside, meeting my husband and son to get the train home.  The other half had no idea what I'd been doing in Glasgow, despite having told him several times.

At the first mealtime, we were having pizza and salad, so I used the bowl for my salad, and made a pretty good fist of eating it with the spoon. My crockery was greeted with suspicion... A bit of resentment... And envy.

As the cook of the house, doing something just for me feels odd.  The boys didn't like it at all.

But I did.