Bronwerdd
I think I may have made a mistake.
She is looking at me oddly, and she has been asking me some strange questions.
Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't done it, I can see that; but there's not much I can do now.
She's gone out. I don't know where she is. The house is chilly and silent.
I don't think I knew what I was doing at the time and I wouldn't ever have thought that it would come off. I think I must have been a bit drunk, on the wine and the summer heat and the moon.
I'd been longing for a companion. Well, not longing. Wishing. I think the move had unsettled me, and the new job. Being made head chef, just like that, when I'd never expected it. In that big old castle too - somebody told me the foundations went right back to the Middle Ages. And the cellars. The wine cellar.
That's what started it, those old bottles of wine. I know wine couldn't really be that old, but I wonder about those dusty bottles we found right at the back. When I went home that night I took one of them with me, just to taste.
Perhaps there was something in it besides wine, something that came out when I opened it, something that came over me.
I've never felt as strange as I did after that first glass.
I'd been in the kitchen all day long, with the heat and the steam and all the smells of herbs and vegetables cooking; and I had just one glass before going home. All night long I dreamt, of juicy leaves and succulent greens, so many shades of green. The piercing smell of rosemary, the sweet stinging scent of lavender, and above all the dark, green fragrance of spinach.
I woke up with spinach on my brain. I woke up and saw green. I could not get spinach out of my mind.
I was like this for a week. Obsessed. Its iron taste on my tongue, its bitter scent in my nostrils.
I fell in love with spinach...
I think I may have made a mistake.
She is looking at me oddly, and she has been asking me some strange questions.
Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't done it, I can see that; but there's not much I can do now.
She's gone out. I don't know where she is. The house is chilly and silent.
I don't think I knew what I was doing at the time and I wouldn't ever have thought that it would come off. I think I must have been a bit drunk, on the wine and the summer heat and the moon.
I'd been longing for a companion. Well, not longing. Wishing. I think the move had unsettled me, and the new job. Being made head chef, just like that, when I'd never expected it. In that big old castle too - somebody told me the foundations went right back to the Middle Ages. And the cellars. The wine cellar.
That's what started it, those old bottles of wine. I know wine couldn't really be that old, but I wonder about those dusty bottles we found right at the back. When I went home that night I took one of them with me, just to taste.
Perhaps there was something in it besides wine, something that came out when I opened it, something that came over me.
I've never felt as strange as I did after that first glass.
I'd been in the kitchen all day long, with the heat and the steam and all the smells of herbs and vegetables cooking; and I had just one glass before going home. All night long I dreamt, of juicy leaves and succulent greens, so many shades of green. The piercing smell of rosemary, the sweet stinging scent of lavender, and above all the dark, green fragrance of spinach.
I woke up with spinach on my brain. I woke up and saw green. I could not get spinach out of my mind.
I was like this for a week. Obsessed. Its iron taste on my tongue, its bitter scent in my nostrils.
I fell in love with spinach...
� Imogen Rhia Herrad 2001, Honno 2002
