Rose petal tea, you can taste the perfume. This week I am drinking rose petal tea. This morning I added five petals of the yellow rose pictured above, a rose called Tottering by Gently, a joke 70th birthday present, to a shoot of peppermint, a small sprig of thyme, and a sweet cicely leaf. The flavour was subtle and peaceful. Yesterday, in the afternoon, I took a handful of the pink petals of the rose that is garlanded around the front door, Strawberry Fields it’s called, and steeped them for a few minutes all on their own in boiling water: so fragrant, so bold.

Elsewhere in my life and mind I have been listening a book called The Buddha is Still Teaching. I have also been listening to Game of Thrones, but yesterday while I was gardening I wanted something more grounded, and I noticed The Buddha book was available. It has had a great effect on me. It is a series of quotes and stories from all sorts of Buddhist people, and it had some tiny insights and some profound insights. One story has stayed with me. It was told by Joanna Macy. She was at an important meeting, in India, perhaps. She noticed a fly in her tea. Such things happen. She has lived here (in India), she is not squeamish. A young man, well known in her world, notices her noticing. ‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Something,’ he says. ‘There’s a fly in my tea.’ He gets up and carefully lifts the fly out of her tea and goes outside. The important meeting continues. It’s about peace or feeding the poor or saving the world. It matters. She does not notice him return. She hears a voice in her ear. ‘He’s going to be alright.’ She raises an eyebrow. ‘The fly. I put him on a leaf. He fanned his wings to get dry. He’s going to be alright.’ Years later this was the only thing she remembered about the meeting.

Also this week I have discovered, via Marjorie’s Table, a poet called Ishion Hutchinson. I have bought his book, Far District, and I’m quietly reading it. Something about it resonates with me in a very profound way. He is writing about growing up in Jamaica. His life could not be more different from mine, and yet I am captivated by his poems in a way I cannot yet understand at all. Reading the poems has sent me back to my own childhood, so different, yet there is something that is calling to my soul. I don’t know where I am going, but a journey has begun.

Everything is a bit profound this week. I have spent a lot of time at the allotment. We have builders reshaping the house, and the allotment is a peaceful place! And it is looking remarkably neat, and I’m bringing home broad beans every day!