weekend loca

we had a busy weekend. A trip to a local school Strawberry Fair , the local monthly market , lots of friends visiting, swimming at my mums and gardening gardening gardening. I love visiting local fairs and markets. Besides the wonderful sense of community they provide, its a great chance to buy local produce and financially support the local economy. The Strawberry Fair, surprisingly named as i didnt actually see many strawberry goods, provided some bargain shopping
and i scored a great stash of second hand tops for the boy for ten dollars and sampled my lovely Spanish friend Anas' mega paella.

The monthly stirling market always makes for a nice hour or two,

as we can wander there on foot, and it provided some pantry fodder; local olive oil, brined kalamata olives, dried local organic fruits, some (more) pottery bowls (im so addicted to these that the potter and i are now on a first name basis ), and a tres sweet woollen fairy to take as a Christmas gift for my tres sweet SIL in California. It also provided the opportunity for some random fellow blogger run-ins. It was wonderful to see a new kitchen garden stall selling punnets of a wide variety of heirloom vegetables as it called to my past dreams.
a friend and i had a late teenage entrpreneurial flop with a gardening business, with the outrageously pompous name of Hortensis . We planted up and maintained kitchen gardens with heirloom crops for paying customers. I just like to think we were ahead of our time.

Im still processing the visits from friends. One couple are a mixed culture marriage; she's newly arrived from China and he is Greek Australian. They have problems and she wasnt afraid to show it. It was very confronting and it threw me to witness such hostility, disrespect and raw anger. I know she will want to talk to me about what is going on in her relationship and i will have to think carefully about the best way to respond. Its such a full on situation involving internet dreams on both sides. Old friends of Simons brought wine and cheese on Satuday night. I love them dearly; they are inspiring, loving , funny, clever and a dedicated 'still in love after 25 years' couple. I found however i am still dealing with my 'married to your deceased friends husband' and 'living in her house' issues. I have moments of self consciousness and flashes of 'is this weird for you' and im thrown back into insecurities. I thought i had dealt with most of these feelings but obviously i still need to do some more reflection and acceptance. Its a strange gig being married to a widow sometimes. Its gotten much easier but we had some very interesting moments earlier on; Its been quite a journey for us both. My favourite was when simon kindly offered to show me the funeral video to help me with my issues. Big night that one! He still cant quite believe he offerred.