Working and waiting

Today is a day of preparation for me because aside my normal daily chores, I’m preparing for the arrival of my sister. We’ve finished breakfast and Hanno has been to the farmers market near here to buy some fruit and a few odds and ends he needs. I will wash up shortly, clean the kitchen and sweep the floors. Instead of baking bread this morning, I’ll bake this afternoon so we’ll have fresh warm bread with our meal tonight. That simple meal will be pasta with my own preserved tomato sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. We’ll have a crisp fresh salad from the garden as well, and cold watermelon wedges for dessert.

My most put off task, ironing, has been half completed and I’ll finish it off before lunch. After lunch I’ll make the bed up for Tricia, pick a small posy of flowers for her room and arrange a radio for her bedside. She is one who wakes in the middle of the night and likes to listen to the radio while she settles back into sleep. I will check her bathroom too and make sure there is homemade soap and some organic shampoo, and maybe another posy of flowers should find its way in there too. After lunch I have more lettuces and cucumbers to plant and I’ll tidy the front verandah as I know it will be in constant use over the coming couple of weeks.

It is at times like these, when I want to welcome someone special to my home and extend a healing heart, that I realise how much my home means to me. It really is so much more than bricks and mortar. It then becomes a place of shelter, not just from the weather but from everything else too. When we are here, it is just us; just this family, with no thoughts or cares for what is outside our fence. When we are here, this is a place where we can reconnect with each other, slow down time, or ignore it; we can wake when we choose, sleep and rest in the warm spring air on the verandahs and listen to the birds zip by. The breeze will rustle leaves and make them to spin gently to the ground and we will sit and talk and drink cool cordial and hot tea and forget for a while that the outside world isn’t as enriching as this.