unexpected gifts
The best gifts are the ones you never expected. Have you ever noticed?
I’ve had another crazy summer. And my body has short-circuited on me. I’m currently in quarantine at home, whilst merrily nursing myself out of tonsillitis and impetigo. And I can confirm that it’s not fun being infectious.
However, in what could be the dullest of dull black canvasses whilst perfecting the art of doing nothing (not my strongest subject) there have been a few unexpected gifts which have coloured things in and delighted me like the streak of a shooting star.
Lovely Doug from Buntingford Mowers, who works next to us at the Fundraising Office, sent me a text at 13.19 on Wednesday (the day of diagnosis) asking if my throat could cope with fresh strawberries and cream.
Erm…let me think….
Half an hour later and he’s at my door with a delicious smelling punnet of delight from Pearce’s Farm Shop and a carton of Longley’s (this IS the best cream for strawberries FYI: I thought you only got it in Yorkshire, but apparently – happily – not).
One bowl a day… keeps the blues away.
Then I had the issue of no comfortable chair to languish on in my cute little yard: let’s be fair, it is the perfect place to recuperate..but maybe not on an upright teak garden chair. One little mention of this shortfall on facebook and one of our Volunteers, the trusty Tony comes to my rescue with the offer of a lounger..which he efficiently delivers to my door at 11am this morning.
It is only thanks to this that I have – today – made progress with my foray into the art of doing nothing. For at least half an hour I literally sat here, looked at the sky, drank some pineapple juice – complete with ice stars – and did diddelelly squat. Not bad for a novice. The rest of the time I read, I ate, I wrote, I made some phone calls…but all the time just sitting…in the one spot (unless you know me, you won’t understand the significance of this).
And, back to talking about gifts – although not to gazump the aforementioned ones – even better, are the unexpected gifts which grow.
They have to be the gold standard. And I seem to be doing pretty well at the moment (the reason for which I’ll keep to myself for now, thanks for asking): tomato plants with yellow buds full of juicy promise; stems of a sweet pea betraying it’s scented ambitions on a stealthy winding climb up a bean pole; the hanging basket, once vibrant with multi-coloured cacti-type-flowers stretching out their petals each day to greet the sun; lilac over-sized poppies held decent by their pot but brazenly flaunting their yellow bits for all to see.
A gift that grows has a way of wrapping itself around you. Do you know what I mean?? (or maybe it’s the penicillin). I do get easily attached, of course. But a good gift is a good gift. Especially if it’s unexpected. Or if it grows.