Tomatoes and Toast

I saw the tomatoes on the windowsill as I washed the dishes, and noticed the salt standing close by and it took me home to a past where my mother and her mother used to love tomatoes on toast, with just the right amount of butter, salt and pepper ... with their tea or their coffee, depending on what phase they were in.

We are women who move between beverages, changing our tastes with a flu or a cold, craving the one that we don't drink once we're recovered.

They were gin and tonic women, and here am I, their red wine girl, although neither of them lived long enough to know this thing about me.

Presently, my craving is coffee, good Kaldi supplied coffee, vegemite (not Marmite just now) and red wine ... moving into the Italian wines with summer approaching.

Poplar trees are another 'trip' home, most specifically the scent of poplar trees in the rain and as it's be been raining and we have a (just) still-standing small forest behind us, walking home through the rain last night transported me far away from Belgian streets and into the natural New Zealand world I grew up in.

Mum was a wanderer I think, one who never really wandered but embraced adventure and challenges. I think she might have loved this European life of mine, where I visit Italy perhaps as often as she visited Invercargill some years.

Neither of us could have imagined this mad life of mine while she lived but I have this strong sense of her travelling with me since she died so maybe she knows.

The coffee has gurgled in the pot and the toast has popped too. The apartment is clean again so now for some food from an old life before I begin round 2 of this day here in Belgie.