Coping

Hello, thank you for your patience, for your kind thoughts and your condolences, all very much appreciated.  September and October were very difficult months: two family deaths in September, both long lives lived well but suddenly gone, during which I worked for three weeks under a redundancy notice which was rescinded with five days to go.  "Phew!" I thought - my job is part-time but I love it and the meagre wages have made a big difference, so those weeks were stressful.  We spent the first half of October in that terrible limbo between death and funeral and to be honest, we didn't feel much better afterwards.  We live almost two hundred miles away from the rest of the Best Beloved's family and the inherent communication problems make things difficult.  There seems to be quite a lot of treading on eggshells. 

Last week was half term week so we went to Guernsey for five days with The Teacher and Flashman to see The Mathematician, who is working there for her university placement year.  The break and the time together did us all the power of good...although while we were there, my employer went into liquidation and the Best Beloved's school decided that they don't need him back, so we both became unemployed on the same day.  My employer owes me six weeks' wages and I might receive them before Christmas, or I might not.  Thank goodness for duty-free gin.

 

So, here we are back home.  The agency found some work for the Best Beloved on Monday and he is now booked up for the rest of this term - hurrah!  The trees are dressed in my favourite autumn colours and I can see lots of them from my windows - hurrah!  The sun is shining in a  blue sky with white fluffy clouds - hurrah!  I am taking deep breaths and trying to gently unwind the tightened ball of grief and anxiety I have become.

 

Yesterday, this involved a session of homely, old-fashioned, domestic cooking.  I made cottage pie for dinner - is it the ultimate comfort food? - and cooked enough mince for a couple more, now stashed away in the freezer.  I put the remnants of a chicken carcass in a pot with onion, carrot, peppercorns and herbs, covered it with water and simmered it for two hours.  At the end of that time, I lifted the lid and there it was: the smell of my parents' kitchen, the nostalgic smell of home.  My parents always made stock with a chicken or turkey carcass and then used it to make a homely soup with vegetables and lentils.  When I was first married I did the same, but soon discovered that the Best Beloved only really liked soup if it came out of a tin (57 varieties) so there seemed little point, and once The Teacher became vegetarian when she was nine years old there was no point at all.  Any need I had for chicken stock was satisfied by a cube (which, of course, is not the same thing).

 

So this is the first time I have made chicken stock for many years.  Recently, the Best Beloved has discovered a liking for chilled tubs of soup from the supermarket and he expressed a willingness to give my homemade soup a try, so tonight was the night.  I finely chopped an onion and a carrot, softened them in a smidgen of butter, added a handful of red lentils and the precious stock, added herbs and seasoning and let it all simmer for twenty-five minutes before adding the chicken I had stripped from the carcass. 

 

 

 

 

Gentle readers, I have to tell you that it was...a triumph.  The Best Beloved said that it was "really nice", which is as complimentary as he gets, and he pointed out that it is the third meal we have had from the chicken - roast on Sunday, sauted with vegetables and rice on Monday, soup today - which thriftiness is immensely satisfying.  That soup was delicious, nurturing body and soul.  Slowly, I am unwinding.

 

I'll be back soon to tell you about Guernsey.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x