Going Gently

Longing

I'm longing for blue skies

And dry lanes.

Grass you can lie on and look up to white clouds

and green hedgerows that frame the fields.

Hard dry ground, and happy hens lying in the shade and

no dirty paw prints around the house

Trelawnyd is warm, and dusty and clean

Trelawnyd under a dry Gop Hill in summer

The Prof is working exceedingly hard at the moment.
He's often up hours before dawn beavering away at his office desk.
As me and the dogs are snoring away in our beds
To oil the cogs somewhat, I have a tendency to feed.
I am a feeder.
In my mind nothing helps a bout of overworking tiredness than a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake.
It's the food that won the war.
I'm out later , so thought that the Prof may appreciate a cake to come home to.
I thought I had all of the ingredients so greased a loaf tin, preheated the oven and measured out the butter.

The new girls

I suddenly realised that we were short of eggs ( the new girls are still somewhat stressed by their recent move and are stubbornly keeping their egg ducts closed) so I traipsed around to animal helper Pat and borrowed some .
Then I realised that I had run out of self raising flour ! So went around to another neighbour to blag a cupful. The price of the trade was me to give some health advice for her husband later in the week.
It's useful being a nurse sometimes.
Luckily I had all of the other ingredients to hand, but I bet I could have bartered more ingredients if I needed to......talk about frugal living
In 30 minutes I had banged out a loaf as Mary and George slept off a mornings' play fighting.

Banana cake

Mary & George

Smell Power

Radio 4 aired a programme on the role of smell in memory this week.
I was reminded of it last night.
Apparently a smell from your past ( that's an odd phrase) can trigger an intense burst of memory from a specific and generally unused part of the brain. The longer the period since you have " smelled the smell" the more intense the memory flash will be.
It's an interesting concept.
A mixture of cold cream and old fashioned face powder ( from one of those compacts) will always hurtle my brain back to my1970s Grandmother.
The smell of butterscotch angel delight to my primary school days
And a wiff of tequila.....well the very wiff of the bloody stuff takes me back to a 1990 house party in Bottesford Leicestershire where I experienced the very worst hangover in my entire life.

A Pang

Tonight The Prof went off to a church council meeting.
I spent the evening on the phone to friends.
Winnie joined me on the couch.
I was just jousting with friend Nige over something when absent mindedly I rearranged the throw on which I was sitting and edged my hand down between the couch cushions.
I felt something unfamiliar
I pulled out a small, worn, black harness.
It was Meg's, and I wondered where it had gotten to
Without thinking I lifted the harness to my face and breathed in the vague smell of a much loved dog.......... at the same time as having a silly conversation about a patronising work colleague and I felt the very physical pang , a stabbing pain of a friend lost.
My friend on the other end of the phone knew nothing of what went on.
But after the call was over, I opened the log burner door and put the harness quickly into the flames.
Just for that second it was Still all too painful .....