The plants are OK but I am not.
My fingers feel decidedly frosty and I am wrapped up in blankies.
I eat garlic and honey in vain attempt to kill this nasty virus, but what I really need is chicken soup. Except Mary and Martha are still alive. I ask mum if she would consider killing the chickens once they stop laying eggs, as it says in the Chicken Coop book. I don't think she will, she's far too attached. I say, they will be tastier than farmed chickens.
How far I have come since I was a semi-vegetarian from aged 12 to 24. I have to content myself with hardboiled eggs in congee. Or chicken noodle soup out of a packet. The chickens being cremated and crushed into a powder. Will those chickens sacrifice their lives so that I can live and be warm?
I don't do much gardening, Mum shells feijoas and makes up jars of preserves. I do pot up a choko that has sprouted, to plant out in spring after the frosts. Chokos are green and kind of bland, but they make good curries.
Mum repeats..do not buy any more plants! I think she may have seen my bromeliads.
Oh for a place of my own! Then I can do whatever I like and plant whatever I like. Instead, like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, I ask meekly for soil, saying 'might I have a bit of earth?'. Mary was sickly and sallow and went around wearing black, just like Mary our chicken. But then she discovered a secret garden...
