Summer of Lemons.

Housekeepers I have had an epiphany. Not a religious one I’m afraid, but an epiphany all the same.

Here’s the thing: if you do things, things get done!! Life get’s lovelier and you live to fight another day safe in the knowledge that by taking a holistic approach to your world you will find the kind of peace, calm and domestic bliss we all ache for.

Did you ever hear such wisdom?  No idea what nonsense I’m spouting now? Take the humble lemon…

You see I am making an effort to live mindfully. To  leave my woes under my pillow in the morning, paint a glossy smile onto my lips and go and make each and everyday as wonderful as can be. In all areas of my life. In all four rooms as the lovely Rumer Godden once said. So I start the day with a lemon. I want to tell you that I stand in my happy pink kitchen admiring that morning’s lemon in all it’s  yellow, organic, unwaxed glory. But I don’t.  I chop it in half.

I put four thin slices from the first half of the lemon into hot water and leave it to cool while I make the baby’s milk. Then I sit and watch Noddy sipping my lemony water slowly. Knowing that as the magazines say I should, I am detoxing my body. Starting the day afresh, and easing my way into the chaos that is my life by looking after me first…

Then it is into the kitchen to pop the used four lemon slices into a pan of boiling water, with a pinch of cinnamon and a dash of all spice, which I leave to simmer as I blend fruit for smoothies,  toast yukky gluten free toast for the Finster, and  give the kitchen a quick shine as the sweet scent of  spicy citrus fills the air.

We eat breakfast as always at the table. Finley throws yoghurt around the dining room, as  I sit and worry about the latest bills to arrive courtesy of the the oldest Postman in the North.  Then I get up, clear the breakfast  dishes  and pour the simmering lemony water  down the sink  for a quick drain detox that leaves the entire kitchen smelling scrumptious, (don’t you find your drains start to whiff really rather obnoxiously in this kind of heat?) and place  the lemon slices on  a plate in the  window  to dry slowly in the sun for summer fresh pot pouuri…   

I load the dishwasher, popping the last bit of the first half of the lemon onto one of the spokes of the dishwasher so it will refresh it as it works, then slice four slices off the second half of the lemon, chop them into quarters and put in my ice tray with water for ice and a ready slice whenever I hear the gin bottle calling…

Next, really rather madly, I dip my elbows into what is left of the lemon to eradicate all signs of tan out of  a bottle, because  I have told Mark that my gorgeous deep tan is obviously, entirely due to the wonderful, relaxed life I am leading without him, and that now I am a lady of the kind of leisurely pursuits that don’t include sorting smelly socks, I have plenty of time to relax in the sun while he slogs his guts out to keep himself in frozen ready meals. Who ever said living well wasn’t the best revenge, dear Housekeepers?

Then I go about my day, happy as Larry. Come home to a house fragranced by Summer, put my babba to bed, and collapse  into a  cool bath with a long tall glass of whatever by my side.

And all because I made the effort to pop a few slices of lemon into a glass of water moments after I woke up.

Effort m’dears. Effort. That was my epiphany. We can but try.