Friday and memories

I am waiting for the 'boiler' man, but have a feeling he is not going to turn up for his annual appointment.  The garden is wet, soaking wet from the drizzle that happens overnight.  Yesterday was sunny and I took Lucy over the fields to see the state of the crab apple tree.  I love the colour of crab apple jelly, a golden brown, clear and translucent.  But they were still green on the tree, and I normally pick them up from the ground when they are yellow, so a few more weeks yet.

Last years.

The heating is turned off, because I think I am running out of oil, ordered it yesterday but it is to come next Monday, although the oil tanker called in whilst I was out, but the tank was locked.

This morning had a lovely email from one of Paul's old friends who lives in Hawaii, he wrote beautifully, but then he is an editor of a magazine for the Hawaii plane magazine, alongside his work of selling Sake wine.  He said that if I had a memorial service sometime next year he would bring over Paul's favourite bottle of Sake 'A Mansion of dreams'.  He talks of memories and how they can be happy after that initial period of absolute grief.

Here are the two posing outside Rievaulx Abbey on a cold day, you can just see Rievaulx Terrace up above the abbey.

Chris and Paul

Last year Paul had gone up to London to see his grandson Leo, and Chris had a Sake tasting at the Barbican Centre, he sells quite a lot of Sake wine in London.

It reminds me of another memory, sharp and distinct in the Chelmsford garden, when Paul would make a ceremony of drinking the warmed wine out in the garden when the Japanese cherry trees came into bloom in spring. Part of the tradition was to fill each other's glass up from the little Japanese jugs into tiny cups.