Catch

You hear the lines before you open your eyes, fumble for a pen and scribble across the notebook you keep beside the bed, hoping, hoping to catch them before the day whisks them away. But it's ok. You caught them in time. And they seem to be staying with you and you like their company as you wash your face and draw back the curtains. 

The sky is a race of huge clouds, bright in the spaces. The garden is being pushed into a lean. You watch it dance as you make tea, wash fruit, prop open the back door. Those sleepy lines creep across your main notebook and you let more join them, trying to keep out of it for now.

It rains as you get ready for the day, so you wait an hour enjoying the radio until you put on a coat and walk the beach, lean forward into the blast like you mean to get somewhere even though the scene seems to move past your slow progress. It's hard work, so you climb up a scree of stones and sit where it's dry, watch the foam rush towards you. More words come and join you. You write them in a pocket book that wants to fly away.

You buy the paper, hold onto it tight. Choose bread. It flours your hands. You get pushed home even though you planned on strolling, feel the house suck the air in as you come inside. 

Lunch. Change into old clothes. Head out to the edge of town. Work to do.

It's jungly on the plot this year, but we like it. Tall daisies and meadow grasses brush your hands as you walk past. Sage and lavenders are fat globes of flower heads. The apple tree is set with fruit. Sweet peas head skyward. Crops of corn, onions, celeriac, potatoes, beans, leeks are all doing well. But it's weeding and more weeding that we have to get on with today and digging a new bed for some baby corn seedlings. A foot high already. And then we'll be planting more mange tout peas and sugar snaps to be hooked around wigwams of canes.

And it's hot and windy all at once, dusty work, but you know that once you've done the watering the prize is ready to be picked before you head home. And it makes you keep going, makes you make a good job of everything. These are just some of the berries we picked today. The best red and black currants we've ever had. We also picked a few raspberries, strawberries and the first handful of blueberries.

I'm so tired, I've lost the power of speech. 

The sky is a race of huge clouds, bright in the spaces. The garden is being pushed into a lean. I watch it dance as I make tea, wash fruit, prop open the back door, re-read the lines that came breezing in this morning, add a few more.

***

Tomorrow, I have a still life shot appearing at The Altered page. Thanks to Seth for his gathering skills and for having me contribute. Will be interested to see all the pieces that will form that post. 

Heading to the plate. Sit. Eat.

I just ran out in the rain to pick some parsley from the garden, because lunch is going to take about 5 minutes today. And here's the main ingredient. Broad beans. First picking.

Come and sit in the kitchen. The back door is wide open and swishing in the wind, the radio is playing Debussy loud and you can just hear the thump of waves from across the road. 

On the plot, we planted these broad beans as a new venture back in the Winter, hoping that we might make one of those wonderful bean salads they do so well across the water in France, and learn how to grow them better another year. While nothing much else grew on the allotment in early spring except a fine assortment of weeds, these beans seemed to take care of themselves. They have a bit of blackfly, but are housing a colony of ladybirds that we've left to get on and do what they do best. The stems needed a few stakes and strings when the gales hit us hard, but here's a shot taken a couple of weeks ago when we saw that we might have to find a few more recipes to make the best of them.

So, back in the kitchen, you will have gathered that it's not exactly salad weather, so it's going to be a warm plate today. Here's what I'm going to do. 

Take the beans out of the pods and boil them for just a couple of minutes while the frying pan browns chopped pancetta and onions. When cooked, rinse the beans to cool them a bit and slide them out of their pale skins. They'll reveal the most unbelievable green slithers. Try not to eat these right now. Add them to the frying pan. Salt, pepper, chopped parsley. Olive bread on the side.

Eat.

Empty plates. Next time, I'll open a bottle.

Gooseberries

Gooseberries..........Just that word and you see them. Boxes full to the brim with just-picked fruit. So I didn't take photos because I know your mind's eye is already making pictures of it's own.......isn't it? See.

I forgive them the scratches they sketched up my forearms, how they made me kneel down in damp earth to reach under low branches lined with spikes. I'm ready to forget how the new stems were as ruthless as the old wood that taught them how.

We harvested in sudden heat after a night's rain, the woody mulch remembering it was once a forest. And we grabbed handfuls of jewel fruit fit to burst with juice when they hit the pan. A fine prize for stings and splinters, a few bad words and perseverance.

Just a handful for now, oozing through the kitchen, savoured teaspoon by teaspoon sitting by the back door, quiet, one thing at a time. And the rest is freezer-stashed for short dark days when mid Summer light is distant and this taste will sing again.

Mid Summer

I've had to remind myself lately, that this is mid Summer. Too many dark hours sitting at a desk, or taking shelter in the shed hoping that the roof holds out, hiding under trees that drip as much as the sky, or running to catch that bus over there going somewhere I don't really want to go because it's better than standing out in the downpour. 

I keep telling myself that the rain is just balancing out our drought. Great to hear it just got lifted after floods and deluges did the trick. Here's what headed our way the other day. It was like a silent film. I watched it racing towards shore, made a dash for home and slammed the door when that white crest started falling like it was surf. 

Luckily, I've had a huge project on the go, so all these hours stuck indoors have paid off. The ironing is all done, which is a bit worrying and that towering stack of papers on the kitchen table seems to have dwindled away. 

My plot seems to enjoy whatever is thrown at it, although the frog and slow worm population can't keep up with the slugs and snail feast. Here's what came by accident. Self seeded from a few heads last year. Waist high daisies. We've decided to leave them because they just make us smile.

After a Jubilee and a transit of Venus

In between the rain, here's where I go to sit, beside the pink valerian and the last golden wallflowers. The notebook is eager to get on, turns its own pages ahead of me in the snappy wind. I clip them down, wrap up warm, tuck in.

A blackbird picks through the loose gravel beside my feet, though I brought no picnic. That dog who always seems to have a smile on his face strolls by, sniffs and sniffs again while his owner waits near the road. The jogger who yells at himself to COME ON huffs past, sweat mapping his grey shirt. The fisherman who rows out from his net strewn gaff, who drags his yellow boat across an acre of shifting stones, who hauls it into the silver surf, slips free of land towards the pier.

Back to work. It's hard to sit still after the celebrations. After millions of us turned as one, gazed towards Elizabeth and Venus, pointed the camera, shielded our eyes from the sun, it seems like we fell thoughtful.

***

Another  blackbird I wrote about is soon to appear in Fiona Dempster's beautiful calligraphy at an exhibition across in Portland, Oregon. Here's the link to Fiona's blog post which tells you all about it. Thanks to Fiona for submitting a piece we both enjoyed working on.