I'm relieved to report that all is well with Dad. I've just this minute spoken to him in his room at London Bridge Hospital. He had a Double Chamber Pacemaker fitted this afternoon, was hungry as a herd of bulls (having had to fast pre-surgery, of course) and has been told he should be fine to go home to Kent by train (?!) on Sunday. What a remarkable world we live in... in days gone by, pacemakers didn't exist; neither did telephones or the internet with Skype and email and all the opportunities such technologies offer us for connecting up and being alongside those we love who live on the other side of the world.
One of Dad's favourite vegetables is the globe artichoke. If I could hop over to England right this minute, I'd take him a platter of steaming artichokes, a finger bowl of warm water with floating-boat wedges of bright yellow lemon and a starched white linen napkin to tuck under his chin.
Do you know this poem?
Ode To The Artichoke
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
PABLO NERUDA
Artichoke hearts - Ink & Chinagraph pencil - CB
I've just spoken to Mum who's about to take herself off to bed (it's late in the UK and what a huge week she's had); my sister Pip's also just emailed from Cambridge to give far-flung family an update. At the end of her letter, she wrote... "PS. Jonny lost his first tooth and had a visit from the 'toosth mows' last night. He wrote the most precious letter to explain that he had swallowed the toosth my mistayk and was soree it wasn’t there for the mows’s castle. xoxox"
Thank you for your candlelight and concern - M & D said to say so, too. xxx
