Sunrise Vignette No2
And Some Fucking Brownies
21.06.2025
Waking up was blooming pink roses and peonies. I bought them on my way back from the airport to cheer myself up, as well a basket of good food that was so heavy, I had to keep stopping dramatically to rest as I tottered home up the lane. I’m gorging myself on goodness to ease deep, dull emotional pain, as well as the marks on my arms betraying the story of what happened. I danced around the living room late last night while chicken broth simmered slowly in the background, its rich aroma filling the air while I slept, the slow cooker doing its work of breaking down the bones. Can I put my lifelong familial predicament in there - all 6ft2 of it? Would it break down into something nourishing too?
22.06.2025
Waking up was rumble and thunder. The garden is heaving, vines stretching their fingers to the window panes, they’ll be inside before long, especially after this soaking. It was solstice last night and I was in charge of capturing it. I hid my sadness behind the camera, and enjoyed how being the photographer meant I could move on from small talk with legitimate grace. I walked down the lane before it got too dark and I couldn’t see, but June’s breeze took my hand and soft my bruises. The taxi driver dropped me at Chartham station instead of Chilham so I pretended that I still lived there and regarded the village midnight perspective.
23.06.2025
Waking up was a slow, uncertain unravelling. My head hurts. A lot. So I’m keeping a low profile but maybe I’ll organise the kitchen later, or try and go for a long walk, though maybe I ought to just rest. I’m not sure I’m capable of it. Completely surrendering to nothing. I could write a list to give the day some kind of bones. I decide to stay in bed and softly listen to Joni Mitchell’s Blue album. Oh, I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some
Oh, I love you when I forget about me.
25.06.2025
Waking up was condensation, a strange nosebleed, and sunshine. I dreamt that I was on a stormy beach lying on the sand and that a large wave arched over the top of me but didn’t fall. Instead, it hovered perfectly a blue-grey glacier. I poked it with my finger and it was warm like blood. I decided the best thing to do was to lie still and wait. I’m awake now but in some other place I am still there waiting for the water to come crashing down.
26.06.2025
Waking up was a decision - sadness, indifference, or gooseberries, so I chose the latter, plotting from bed how to remedy them. I settled on fermenting them to make a cordial and a relish to go with some kind of ceviche. I’ll make some fucking brownies while I’m at it. No use wallowing when I’ve got so many beautiful things to make. Yesterday it was an Hojicha pudding on a ritz cracker base. It’s not like I’m entirely ignoring that I’m sad, I had a big cry yesterday morning, but then I wrote something short about thick, bloody ribbons. Life marches on.
I re-read something Laura Marling wrote last night and nod.
‘The idea that living is a slow revelation, one that, when approached correctly, produces its own desire to continue, is beautiful to me. Answers to philosophical or psychological knots within us are often untangled by time alone, solutions provided in the eternal revelation of being… the urge to write a song, whether conscious or unconscious, is usually related to the need to untie some or other psychological knot within me. What we make of our misfortunes are what we make of our life, maybe even the lives that follow; this is the spirit of Judgement, in my understanding.’
Twin
If blood is thicker than water then you have bound my wrists and ankles with shining crimson ribbons formed before we could speak. A twirl of it around my throat. You fastened me to you so we could be one, and filtered everything you hate about yourself through me, born into an eternal prison of kinship, feeding on my self-image, facing your black mirror of deceit.
Some Fucking Brownies
Makes approx. 36 brownies
Ingredients
375 g soft unsalted butter
375 g good quality dark chocolate
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
500 g caster sugar
225 g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
300 g salted marcona almonds
3 tsps AVANTCHA Organic Hojicha Powder
Method
Prepare a tin measuring 33 x 23 x 5.5 cm and line with foil.
Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy-based pan. Don't overheat or the chocolate can become grainy.
When the chocolate and butter has melted take off the heat and let cool a while.
Meanwhile beat the eggs and sugar in the mixer or by hand.
Measure out your flour, add the salt and set aside.
Once your chocolate mixture has cooled, pour it into the beaten eggs, sugar and vanilla extract mix. Beat again until well combined.
Sift in the flour and hojicha, if using, and beat until combined.
Stir in the nuts.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
When cooked the top should have a dry, pale crust, but the middle should be super gooey. Bake for longer or less depending on desired consistency. I personally like a landslide in the middle.
Remember that brownies will carry on cooking once removed from the oven.
Sending you a hug xxx
I love you