Herbs and vines

A borage flower just opening in a vine-decorated Wedgwood cream jug which belonged to my grandmother, Thirza Emma, who was born 120 years ago today. She was a fiercely independent woman, the eighth of thirteen children who went into service when she left school at the age of 13. Temperamentally unsuited to that kind of work, she qualified as a physiotherapist by correspondence courses and worked for most of her life, before her marriage and after she was widowed when my mother was three. She was interested in alternative remedies and was known in our village as someone who cured people using herbs, hence the borage here. She wasn't the cosy grandmother type at all and I didn't appreciate her enough when she was alive, but have come to recognise her strengths and her character as I've grown older. I've written about Emma's life in a sequence of poems, In Sight of the Sea.

Today daughter E and her partner are flying to New York to stay with friends, so as usual I shall spend the afternoon and evening preoccupied with keeping their plane in the air. It seems a good day for them to be going to the city where Emma lived for five years and where my mother was born.

There's a Cercle Occitan lecture and meal this evening which will take my mind off my concerns a bit. Last night's jazz was very good - a singer Rachel Ratsizafy with a wonderful strong voice. We're very lucky in this area to have such a wide range of musicians living locally, as she does, or visiting and now we have the summer open-air concert season to look forward to.....so long as the weather improves!