Baking on crutches

Another cloudy intermittently rainy day, colder too. After breakfast I went to the Eucharist at Saint Catherine's. There were seven of us this morning. Over coffee afterwards they wanted a progress report on Clare. I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter on my way home. As I was crossing the junction of Llandaff and Romilly Roads I noticed a set of gates were being installed in the rebuilt entrance of 'The Cedars', the Victorian Mansion which has been transformed over the past year, facade faithfully restored to its original condition, perimeter wall and railings faithful to originals which would have been removed as part of the war effort over 80 years ago, servants' quarters rebuilt and adapted discreetly for contemporary uses, and garden space laid out differently with the addition of new trees and bushes. I've no idea who may have funded this or who will be living there. It's an impressive piece of work.

I cooked salmon and rice with green beans and carrots for lunch. Yet again I slept in the chair for an hour. I may be in bed for nine hours each night, but I'm awake intermittently for one to two hours in the night. Then, a trip to the shops to stock up on groceries. Clare hinted that she fancied some cake, so I promised to buy her fresh pastries. When I returned with them, the oven was on with a chocolate cake cooking in it. 

The challenge of baking while using crutches was irresistible for her - to think that a week ago she was languishing in hospital, still feeling nauseous! It's a positive sign of good recovery and her determination to get back to normality as soon as possible. It was tiring for her however, and I took her supper upstairs. After we'd eaten I walked to Thompson's Park for a breath of fresh air, and then settled down to watch the finale of 'Karen Pirie' in which two different but linked murders were solved and the perpetrators arrested. 

In the end it was the relentless search for forensic detail that completed the picture and made it possible to tell both stories, past and present. It turned out in the end that Detective Sargent's Pirie's boss was the murderer, hiding in plain sight for twenty five years. His fatal error was to underestimate the young police woman he commissioned to lead the investigation, convinced she'd fail to solve the case. After all the twists and turns of the case, this was his only admission when confronted with the story she told about him and his crime. One of the most important things about modern feminism is that it highlights the ability and successes of women often overlooked, ignored or wrongfully attributed to men. Still far too many men regard women as inferior to men and mistreat them, for they find the notion of equality threatening to their self esteem. When will we ever learn?