#358 - Death Row Meal

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It was so lovely just sitting there, drinking my wine and watching them cook. They made my death row meal of Caesar salad, Seafood Chowder and Lemon Meringue Pie. I had a choice of watching TV or watching them cook. It is two hours I will remember for the rest of my life. They had done the shop, got my present and I got them at 6. They then proceeded to make the dinner and I just helped out and conversed with happiness. It has to be, in a life of having wonderful things done for me, the most wonderful thing done for me. I was touched beyond measure.

After that was the frenetic planning and cooking of the solstice meal. I loved it. I made chocolate first thing in the morning and it split, infuriatingly. However every year and deal with split chocolate. This was taking a little longer. Every year the solution is different. One year it was more brandy. Another year it was more cocoa. This year nothing I did worked. So I just let it cool and then used a handblender. That worked. After that it was the infernal roasting of everything. The turkey and the pork and then the potatoes. Roast everything is the war cry of the kitchen at Christmas. And that is not even the worst part. The worst part is guesstimating quantities. Is it too much or too little? It turns out too much flesh and not enough veg. 

However, before the night was over there was much laughing and cackling and memory making. Friends being friends being friends. Despite bloody Covid. It was the second part of an awesome birthday. Finally, the next morning we headed to the Quarries to have the solstice ceremony in the beautiful December sunrise. The frost was twinkling. I made the fire. It was amazing how I was able to pick branches in the darkness and know it was ash or oak. I broke the branches and we had two firelighters. It was a collective effort and we kept the fires going.

I had suggested one thing we would want to let go and transform, one thing we wanted for the coming year and finally, one silent thing. For myself, it was the end of my marriage, letting the burden of it go, to be free, to finally be released from a relationship I had tried so hard at and ultimately failed. As the days pass the pain of it recedes. The thing which I placed as an intent as the Forest School, to have it more accessible as time went by. And finally, the silent intent was my complete and absolute gratitude for everything in my life. Just unadulterated gratitude. And that was it, literally it.

On the way to the gathering we caught a glimpse of the conjunction. 

How could anything be otherwise? In the midst of the madness, of this fear, of this chaos, I turned 50 and I had the best birthday of my life. Nothing could ever take those moments in time from me. I will be remembering them forever.

So I will now clean the house for an hour and then we will be off to shop for Oisin's Christmas gift. May everyone have a wonderful 2021. I can already feel it is going to be a year where we will be made to wake up, whether we want to or not. That can only be good.

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