07 September: Ten Things of Thankful

Ten things for which I give thanks this week…

1 – Our Olive tree seems to have set the majority of flowers – whether they turn into lovely black olives remains to be seen but there are far more, potentially than last year…

2 – We were loaded up more or less according to schedule to depart for our holiday in Cornwall – and no, there is no kitchen sink in there…

3 – Grateful to our neighbour opposite for agreeing to water the garden (containers) whilst we are away – the Rhubarb is the bellweather – I hav e never tried to grow Rhubarb in a pot before and it has grown so much this year, after already being repotted once, that I think it will need an even larger pot for next year. It started from a fragment of plant that came away with a stalk I picked two years ago! It has wilted several times with this years heatwaves but has perked up within the hour after being watered…

4 – Gratefull not to have been travelling an hour earlier when a serious accident happened en route for the motorway at a place where, stuck in the queue waiting for it to be removed (took another hour) we could do nothing but chat to other drivers and I took this picture of the landscape. There was no alternative to waiting, no lanes that could be used to bypass the incident – es la vida…

5 – Glad to have been once more passing surely the best motorway service station, possibly in the world! Looking like some ancient megalithic structure embedded in the landscape, this service station is a Farm Shop selling amazing artisan breads and cakes, fruit and wholefood goods. I bought a Sourdough loaf which will last our first week on holiday, apples and a Pistachio cream filled Croissant…

Even the Fuel Station is different from usual…

6 – Glad that this is the season of native English apples and here is my favourite a Discovery apple. The intens red of the skin permeates the flesh inside – and the taste – well, this is to other apples as Champagne is to other wines! Sadly, supermarkets favour apples that last longer (at the cost of less taste) and have their supply lines set to a steady flow of foreign apples – so all the more reason to savour English apples when they are in season and you can manage to find them…

7 – We arrived at 9 o’clock at night after an epic 12 hour drive and this is the little garden at the back of the static trailer. The approach to it is not very prepossessing – a building site! But the accomodation is nice if bijou and there is a stream flowing alongside which gives a constant gurgling soundtrack…

8 – On the other side of the wall is a disused China Clay drying works since we are on the outskirts of St. Austell, Cornwall, where china clay mining has been an industry for a long time supplying clay for uses from toothpaste to glossy paper…

9 – It is raining this morning but we are on holiday so es la vida! (That’s life!) We shall just relax and go with the flow…

10 – We had chip butties for lunch yesterday – how decadent is that!

I hope you are all living your best lives too and if you want to join in – click the link below…

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Bread and Apples

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics was interviewing Sarah Connor a long-time member of the Pub. I never had the privilege of  writing to one of Sarah’s prompts but it is clear from the interview and from the fragments of Sarah’s poems chosen by Kim, that it would indeed have been a privilege and so I hope to honour her with this poem
The italicised lines are from Sarah Connor’s poems “Apple” and “ ‘No mail – no post

There is a wholesomeness to apples
I used to say I could live
on bread and apples alone
but diabetes now rules
my diet – fruit sugar is
still sugar nevertheless
and most bread, though staff of life
creates a sugar spike for
which I must later atone.

If weather be kind, apples
fill out from flower-size fruit
the white flesh crisp, fine-grained
though Discovery surprises –
the flesh by red skin stained
the taste a fizz of champagne
I must now sip one by one
no longer scoff by the pound.

Sourdough is the only bread
eaten in moderation
some secret from its magic
starter’s generation
baton passed from batch to batch
less sugar, less spike it’s said
and there is more flavour too
yeast fed on the flour itself.

And as a poet, I hope,
just this blank space – this white page
will be fleshed out with words –
the starter of my poesy
will slowly feed on today’s
thoughts and swell the dough, my loaf
which baked on the page will raise
a wholesome, healthy poem.

© Andrew Wilson, 2024