Once a year, my mother used to take a week and go away by herself. Usually on a retreat to a monastry or convent. Though I am sure she would have gone absolutely anywhere that promised peace, quiet and no rowdy children. Someone else did the cooking and cleaning and she rested her mind and reconnected with herself. What a perfect idea for any mother.
Usually Great Aunty Del came up from Down South and took over the house. I think I told you that one year Mum came home from her wonderful retreat to find that Dad was building a wee row-boat in the downstairs kitchen. I have no idea where Aunty Del was that time. It had been a rainy week. And Dad had been unable to work on his dinghy and mind the kids at the same time, so he had maneuvered the boat through the big french doors and into the kitchen and continued to work on it in there. It was made from laminated contrasting hardwoods laid strip to strip and glued and clamped and curved at each step. Then planed and sanded. Mum came home to a kitchen floor full of pungent coiled ringlet wood-shavings, the table covered in tools so they were out of reach of little fingers and a pile of kids playing in that most wonderful of freshly scraped wood smells, no doubt shrieking like banshees and high on fumes. I cannot even sharpen a pencil now without thinking of that beautiful wee row-boat.
When I was a young Mum in my first marriage, I came home with groceries on another rainy day, in another time, to a motorbike on its stand in the hallway in various stages of dismemberment and an unknown piece of machinery from the motor on the kitchen table. It was unapologetically greasy, filthy and dismantled, sitting proudly on the pine kitchen table on a scrap of newspaper, a good once white tea towel black with oil draped over it.
My mother and I in our seperate generations, in our different period costumes, our clothes twenty years apart, her cotton dress cinched at the waist wearing stockings and court shoes and my flimsy skirt too short with bare legs and sandals, my hair abandoned to curl down my back and hers cut neatly to the nape of her neck, my mother with red lipstick, me in creamy pink, her eyes flashing green, mine pale blue – viewed in a Split Screen on the television of our memories – both sighed, shook our heads slowly, thought ah well, reached for our aprons on the hook behind the door and said honey, can you get that thing out of here, I need to start dinner then sent the children to wash their hands.
Here is the lovely milking machine sitting on the dining room table. 
Isn’t it beautiful. Not a speck of grease or bad behaviour.
Last night we ate our spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Home made pasta made with our own eggs, spaghetti sauce from our own preserved summer tomatoes and meatballs from our own beef freshly ground yesterday morning, herbs from the window, my home made parmesan, with a wee side of pesto that I made in the summer and stored in a jar in the freezer. Well you get the picture. We all love food, and you all know the perfect uncomplicated pride of growing, preparing and eating your own food. But we had to eat this most sumptious of gentle feasts with our plates on our laps gazing at the reflections in the milking machine, because it is so lovely and it is on the dining room table. And we were not allowed to put food close to it in case of greasy fingers!
Life is so simple really when you get down to it. (laughter)
Another overcast morning is unfolding. No sunrise again. It rained all day yesterday once the temperature had risen. Today, between farm chores, we are off in search of more old recycled timber to finish the work in the barn.
Good morning.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
110 responses to “The Things you find on the dining room Table”
I enjoyed your story this morning! Thanks!
You are welcome wanda, i hope you are nice and busy today! c
Sounds like a perfect supper 😉
Oh it was! I love it when i can create a meal entirely from the farm! c
It’s raining and nearly 60F here…makes me want to plant things…
The shiny new milking machine looks like a modern sculpture. Quite table-apropriate!
Wow, you are having a warm day.. it is 41 here and the sun is shining, perfect! c
Good Morning C.
The milking machine looks so cool. Wonder what Daisy will think?
I currently have what can only be described as a nest of wires and electrical components occupying my dining room table. I don’t know what they’re for and I’ve learned not to ask.
Have a wonderful day.
Oh latrice, best not touch either! (laughter) c
every time you talk about your home-made/grown things, it is clear you take so much pride in them. it is contagious. i want to try to become more sustainable, though it will be something of a trick since I live on only 2 acres just outside of suburbia. it makes me miss my country childhood and wish I didn’t have to work full time. Staying home and growing plants/animals would be more fun.
Two acres is a great space. But you can only do what you have time for or the rushing negates the fun. i am sure you have a great garden though! c
Oh yeah: so simple to raise beef and can sauce and make your own Parmesan! Sure, we all could do it. Are you kidding? What lovely fruits of your labor.
Well raising the beef might be a bit tough for someone with only a little garden! (laughter) c
When my birthday rolls around each year, I always tell my family that all I really want is a day alone. They think it’s weird, but I bet most moms would understand. I love your parallel memories, and the milking machine is a very impressive dinner guest!
Siobhan that is exactly right. just to be able to sit in silence and think is such a blessing! c
I’m not sure that Daisy is going to like that contraption you have there. 😉
Daisy will LOVE IT! because i said and don’t go giving her ideas! c
It is a very beautiful milkng machine and you properly paid homage to it with such a wonderful home cooked meal. And your mother was a very wise woman!
The world is full of wise women. Thank goodness! c
What a beautiful image of you and your mom!
I was not sure if it would be understood, the different time zones, the split screen. thankfully you all got it! phew.. c
That is a great looking milking machine! I wish I had cows 🙂
I love my cows rosemary! They just smell so good! c
At the moment I can’t think of anything cute or witty or interesting to say … except perhaps to say that I’m smiling from ear to ear, and once again you’ve warmed my heart. Have a lovely day on the farmy.
We are havign a lovely day, thank you Marilyn. And what you said was just perfect.. c
So so shiny and bright. and a beautiful tale to go with the images and life. Thank you 🙂
I love shiny things! c
Love it!
Morning philosopher! c
The perfect combination of Reflecting and Reflections.
I saw with complete and detailed clarity your split-screen movie of you and Mum discovering the handiwork of your mysterious menfolk and, as all wise women do in the face of such surprises, shrugging with artful nonchalance and getting on with things. I am delighted that your mother had the wit and the means to take her annual retreat, which would indeed be a brilliant thing for every mother to do, if able. There is much sanity-restoration possible in a week apart from the routine demands. I suppose, in that sense, anyone of independent age could benefit from the practice, given the resources.
Meanwhile, there is this new and gleaming, glamorous beauty of an object acting as centerpiece in the dining room, and who *wouldn’t* happily stare at it while eating a truly stupendous, utterly (no pun intended) perfect homemade meal. That’s just about as close to heaven as you can get on this earth, I should think! Daisy’s getting one mighty pretty new present!
yes that annual retreat should be mandatory for all mothers! c