Blue days are important. They make us think in a different way. They are the time to reflect and consider.
Yesterday’s weather was bright and sunny. But for me it was a heavy blue day. Blue days are like that – they fall out of the sky and land on us unexpectedly. Sometimes they almost squash us flat.
Writing is my passion. Yet on a very blue day, the words do not come out in order. Or when they do, they make me cry. Always sad songs, funeral poems, splats of spit sprawling across the page.
I tried singing to the radio. Love doing that. Yet my voice cracks and I howl out of tune. “Blue hat for a blue day..” Tears in the back of my throat – pushing upwards trying to squeeze out of my eyes.
At my primary school decades ago, we used to call weeping ‘roaring’. I don’t know why. Surely weeping is gentle like a willow. Roaring is more like a bear with a sore head. Perhaps that’s why crying was called roaring – to ridicule the ‘cry-baby’. These days, discrimination and bullying is called ‘peer to peer abuse’. In the 1970’s it was called ‘playing’. Crying was frowned upon.
I wondered whether to roar or rip up the writing. Then I remembered my essential creative outlet. The one I’ve had since primary school:
Baking:
In my garden I found one big cooking apple that my tree had grown. The last one of the year and the only whole perfect worm-free windfall apple I have found this year. Treasure.
I decided to celebrate finding it by turning it into a cake. My own version of Dorset Apple Cake:
First, I chopped it up into tiny pieces. Then sprinkled it with lemon juice to stop it going brown.
Next, I mixed together equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour; added eggs, cinnamon and vanilla extract.
I poured half the mixture into a tin. Added a layer of the raw chopped apple and covered it with the remainder of the mixture. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Thirty minutes later the smell in my kitchen was divine. The cake could be eaten warm with custard right now for a self-love high-carb treat – but I chose to wait and share it.
Today, I was working with students at college. I took the cake and shared it with the guys in the office. Everyone’s life was a little bit sweeter at break-time. And that big blue weight turned into smiles.
It is great to make something for ourselves, but when we share what we’ve made, it is even better.
We all have blue days…connect with me for ideas on how to make them tastier.