Today I cried for only the second time since the pills kicked in. Speaking as someone who used to blub at the Cancer adverts, pictures of my kids when they were small, and even the thought of Truly Madly Deeply, five months is something of an all time record. And yet there I was, at work, sobbing. Le Petit Frog is hopping off to another pond, and leaving me, like my ginger cat, bereft. Lest you wonder why the cat cares, well his beloved frogs are of the small, spotted, hoppy variety, 17 of which he's brought home in the last months, legs and feet awebbed and waving, and in so doing, depleted the entire frog population of the neighbourhood. We lost three, but all the others have been repatriated to other homes in the vicinity of a pond, by means of the tupperware box that has now been named the frog box. Bf carries them tenderly to a nearby park by the council estate of White City, where he sets them free, often being watched by a gaggle of drunken Polish workers - migrants of a different sort, who must feel the English are very bizarre.
My Frog, though, is my dearest colleague who is also leaving us after almost 5 years, for pastures new, and life in our pond will be very much depleted, as he really does bring a smile to my face every day, and brightens up the office. I've said before that work is the new family, and it's always gutting when one of your dearly beloved family leaves the nest (okay, mixing my metaphors here). Not one for gushing, I am bereft to be losing my office son.
However, the second reason I cried recently was when I heard that my real family may well be increasing, albeit second-hand. Apparently, my husband is trying for a baby.
With another woman.
It doesn't look much, I admit, but I've just picked the first decent crop of tomatoes - the tiny ones are snowberries and are really sweet and delicious. The larger yellow ones turn peach on the vine and taste like nothing you can find in the supermarket. The red ones are brandy wine, also wonderful and the green zebras, sharp and zesty. There was a time I'd have been more excited by buying a pair of shoes that picking a few tomatoes, but those days are gone with my thin thighs and the ability to balance. There are times when I'm sitting out in the garden under the tree, and Bf looks over at the neighbours fig tree and says he'll need to cut it back, and just that makes me love my life. Is that sad? If it is, pass me a hankie and let me weep into it with contentment. Of course I'm superstitious saying this, fearing that stopping to enjoy the view will bring a thunderclap down on my head and knock me off my perch right back down the mountain, but what's the point of climbing if you can't enjoy being up there? I didn't get a picture of the Persian rice cake, or the Bisella, or the cheese cake cup cakes made from apples from the tree and blackberries from the cottaging capital of West London, aka Wormwood Scrubs, where I noticed an awful lot of single men sitting around on benches who, I'm sure, were there for pricks of a different kind. Shame. It used to be such a nice place to walk around in, and now it just feels sordid and unsavory, though I wish them luck amongst the brambles and the Rotwielers. It can't be comfortable.