When life gives you lemons....

When life gives you lemons , an abundance of autumnal apples and pears and a big bag of over ripe bananas ( well, it was a bargain) and they sit in your fruit bowls and they sit in your fruit bowls some more and remind  you of a time in the past  when you baked a lot at home and your children and husband ate it all up in such a hurry. 

Working in a hospitality environment often means I do not feel like cooking when I come home from work. It's an absolute chore. My son has asked me every single day for the past 20 years 'what's for dinner?' Sometimes I have an answer....last night it was a delicious cottage pie and steamed veg, the night before it was a very tasty chicken pie. Other nights it's a ' listen out for the front door being knocked ', this translates as I have ordered a takeway meal through an app on my phone!

Anyway, this cold autumn weather has made me hanker for home  baking and this morning I did just that, warmed up the oven , lovingly stroked my Kitchenaid and set to baking and baking.
I made a petite lemony layer cake with the lemons from next door's tree. I made banana bread from the over ripe bananas ( bargain,  they were! ) and an upside down apple  and pear cake ....just because I live in an upside down part of the world. It's such a shame that not everyone likes them. One won't eat fruit, one won't eat lemons, one won't eat cooked apples....strange ....just as well that I do like all of them, isn't it?

Kitchen is cosy, it's about the only part of the house that is. We live in a big old draughty house that bakes in summer and whistles wind in the autumn and winter. Kitchen smells delicious. Mixing bowl and beaters have been licked by an eager child ( aged 19) , all that is left to do is sample cakes and assure you that the lemon layer cake is light and delicious and was served with a dollop of Tasmanian clotted cream ....schlurp!

Happy Wednesday everyone .

Ah, yes! My blog! Not many mutterings have been made on it. A constant on my mental 'to do' list but to be fair it's a very long list. Anyway, let's start again, let's write a blog, let's mutter away to a hearts content.An opportunity to chatter away to myself and whoever may eventually read this.

Looking Forward : 
How do you allow yourself to look forward again, to anticipate a future , to think freely and without worry ? How do you learn to do that again once a cancer diagnosis takes that joy of planning ahead away , not once but twice. How indeed.

I've always been a plan a -header , always a count down-er,  a relish-er of the the challenge of a plan, the delicious anticipation of a list to be written and then joyfully ticked off or maybe even scored out.
Life suddenly changes when cancer enters your household , it takes priority, it supersedes even the most set in stone plans. It has to be dealt with .

You deal with it. You take one slow day at a time, slowly. You get through each day , realise that one week has passed , then another , then a month or so and then here we are one whole year post diganosis of cancer part 2. I am learning to dare to look ahead , to plan some events in the future ( though not too far ahead...that would be flighty!)

However, that sense of taking every day as it comes, alonst came crashing down again last weekend. We had a scare, we thought another lesion had grown , that stomach clenching grip of fear returned , that utter terror that cancer was back, that acknowledgement that behind the smile, behind the happy persona lies a constant fear . It resides inside me , usually kept bubbling under the surface but on occasion like at the weekend when 'hello' out it pops. As it happens ( thankfully, so thankfully) it was not another lesion , it has been checked at hospital and reassurances given . I'm left with a sense of ' well, it's okay ...for now' and 'let's not get too carried away with this planning ahead business.'

However, life is for living and loving and laughing. It's for looking forward , whether that's to tomorrow or to next month or to next year. It's for making the most of each day. Here's to making each day count.