Time for a coffee break. It has been another busy day. There have been a lot of them lately. Not that this is anything unusual in itself… but recently the busyness has been tightly focussed. The entire kitchen seems to be coated in a fine layer of powdered sugar, the dog, also pretty well coated, and apparently enjoying grooming her fur, is eyeing me askance yet seems awfully interested in what has been going on in there and I am looking at the clock, realising that somehow it is after 9pm and I still have the housework and ironing to do.

And do I care?

No.

Not a bit.

The day has been a good one. It started well, collecting my son for a jaunt into town… a rarity as I avoid the place like the plague as a rule. He took care of his business and purchases, I even made a frivolous one of my own… also a rarity…and choosing shoes in under two minutes has to be a first!

Then, of course, it was one of those cold and sunny autumnal mornings that warm gradually to softest summer… so a pavement café, cappuccino and pannettone  seemed like a good idea.

We sat and talked. That’s what these places are designed for. Nothing to do with coffee at all… they are places to sit and bask in sun and conversation. Or, in this case, son and conversation.

And we talked a lot. About where we have been on the journey of the past few years, about where it has led, and what we have learned… are still learning… from it. We talked , crucially, about what we are going to do with that new-found knowledge and understanding and where that, too, might lead. The future seems to be full of possibility.

You know, it may be a fairly unusual thing for me to admit (but I am, for some reason, feeling a tad emotional tonight)… but I actually like my sons. Loving them is one thing… it sort of goes with the maternal territory, so to speak. Being proud of them? Yes, they have both earned that, over, above and regardless of any parental bias. But I actually like them… as people, as individuals. As friends. I enjoy their company. Delight in it… well, most of the time. A mother has to have some reservations after all!

To sit there for a while, discussing plans for future projects which should be impossible, with a son who should not be here, and laughing together in the sunshine was pretty darned cool. Especially today.

So what should have been the daunting prospect of another afternoon in the kitchen was also cool. Regardless of all the other things I ‘should’ be doing, or the nagging doubts about whether I could actually do what I intended that always seem to rear up around this stage, the evening drew in as I reached a point things seemed to come together and reach that point where I could stand back and know I was done. Which is about the same time I noticed the state of the place, of course… but who cares? Not me.

You see, I was making my son’s wedding cake.