I didn’t plan on taking a break from writing here. Thank you if you’re still with me – thank you for your patience and interest. I’ve been letting things settle and I’ve been laughing and crying and sighing and dancing. Breathing and reading and listening. I’ve been getting frustrated with a sodden month that echoed my mood perfectly and has suddenly, bang on time, turned into summer. The grass is high and the crickets raucous. The cherries are almost ripe. I’ve been taking my cue from them (click to enlarge):

Mountain Man and I, when we were without care and obligations (or so it seems in hindsight; I’m sure we had things to hyperventilate about back then), used to bake on Saturday nights, but only on the Saturday nights we spent at home, watching TV in the living room with wall to wall orange nylon shag pile (the only carpeted apartment we’ve ever lived in; the memory sets my teeth on edge). We’d bake throughout the night, stepping out onto the balcony at dawn, throwing the doors open wide to let the rich baking scents mingle with the sharp daybreak breeze coming off the water. We ate thick wedges of cake and buttered bread, warm and moist, and then tumbled into bed, locked limbs and slept until midday, just because we could. (I need space to sleep. I love the idea of sleeping entwined but it isn’t practical: entanglement is only good for falling asleep, and of course for sex, and sexual overture, and the tender thank you kiss on the nose tip and elsewhere after sex.)

I’ve been baking (quite astonishing for the woman whose seven-year-old daughter once told her class teacher “My mummy only bakes when it snows”). Baking cakes for little people; dainty fairy cakes with pink and blue icing and glacé cherries on top. For the grown ups, I’ve made a tiramisù laced with enough Amaretto to warm the soul through a millennium of winters. For us, I shall make a lemon meringue pie, to be enjoyed during the footie quarter final with a glass of Sauternes.

PS. Saturday, after sleeping on it: I didn't intend for the above to sound so fluffy. The fact is: it's been a pretty crappy month. I don't like to write about the negative here (although I sometimes succumb in frustration, and god knows how many times I've taken his name in vain plus an assortment of other choice words that make my daughter blush these past weeks). I don't think it's wrong to vent, but I do believe that giving the negative a written voice tends to reinforce it, at least in my case. And I have the good fortune to have a shrink at my disposal to work through stuff (god, I'm so eloquent) should I need to. And tomorrow, I turn a year older, hopefully wiser.

o xxx