Checking The Boundary

 I’m not sure what I’m all about today.

It’s a nothing day as I’m back on nights. This time doing my own and not a colleague’s who had been delayed in the beautiful looking Sicily. 

I’m mourning my cancelled trip to Italy and will organise one as soon as I can afford it .

I’m sat at the kitchen table and the almond milk in my bucket of coffee has curdled. 

The oven is purring and I’m going to be making soup soon

Butternut squash, bean and chilli 

I can hear pawsteps from the bathroom

Soon Roger will jog purposefully through the kitchen and into the garden. He will do a figure of eight around the paths, give a half woof at the gate, then will watch the blackbirds or a sparrow for a while, or the bantam cockerel who still lives in the gardens west of the Church before bouncing back to the kitchen. He will stop for a head rub before sitting in the sunny spot on the living room carpet with the others. 

An hour or so later he will be off on his rounds if I haven’t gathered the troops first. 

Checking each room upstairs , before walking through the cottage and garden.

He does his rounds checking the safely of his home.

I change the radio from a depressing talk radio to the relative cheerfulness of radio 2 ( Tom Chaplin Overshoot) and I add bulbs of garlic to the roasting butternut squash. I can see crumbs lurking defiantly on the work tops. Peeking out from behind knife blocks, underneath trivets, and my Italian Moka maker.

They tease me everyday even though I damp dust everywhere each day.

The home phone has just rung. It never rings anymore. 

A scam call from Microsoft. 

I asked the call handler if his mother was proud of what he did for a living

He hung up on me

I didn’t feel any better for my comment. 

I don’t feel sad today. Just a bit flat 

Do you know the flat place where your mind wanders like a fat bee on a buddliea bush.

I wonder what my ex husband is doing. I miss him.

Then I tell myself off for feeling lonely before adding stock cubes and more water to the simmering soup 

The cottage suddenly smells of food and Dorothy ambles in sucking her gums hopefully.

It’s almost two now. 

I chase the aforementioned crumbs with a damp cloth, 

Added the roasted squash to the soup and put it on slow simmer.

And fiercely washed my face at the kitchen sink using the Molton Brown handwash Nigel had given me

It smells so go I may use it in the shower later.

Roger has just trotted out into the garden again

His home is safe and he’s content it is with a satisfied snort 

Belinda Carlisle’s True Heaven Is A Place On Earth is playing on the radio.

I ladled the soup, which I thickened with udon noodles minutes ago

It was bloody , BLOODY lovely