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.The family had taken such pride in their garden and after he had retired, Walter had planted huge rows of vegetable and flower beds.There was a huge lawn and several fruit trees and bushes.At first he had tried to keep Biddy involved in the gardening, until she mistook weeding for harvesting and pulled out unripe potatoes and carrots instead of grass and other unwelcome plants in the beds.As his wife needed more supervision, he had less time to do the garden work.He now even employed a gardener but deeply resented having to waste so much money and not being able to do things himself.His knee had been playing up for the last few years and was forcing him to give up some of his favourite sports as well: tennis was out of the question now and of course running, too.In a way it seemed good timing because if he were physically still able to do everything that he used to do, it would have been a bigger loss and much harder for him to care for Biddy in the same way.On the other hand, Biddy had been a distinctively loving and giving friend, mother and wife as long as he had known her, and maybe it would have been easy to sacrifice time and hobbies for her.Since the signs of her disease had become more apparent, Walter found it much quieter in the garden than before.He noticed how overgrown the hedges had become and thought he could detect signs of neglect on the other side of it as well.He knew he had been too busy to trim them regularly, but to think that the enthusiastic gardeners next door had not cut back their side of it seemed unusual.Did they deliberately keep it thick like this so it would act as a visual shield? Or was that his paranoia again?After half an hour of weeding, he started to get an uneasy feeling and decided to go inside and check up on Biddy.His son Henrik urged him never to leave Biddy alone at all, which Walter felt was far too dramatic.On the other hand, only the other day Biddy had tried to press clothes and had left the iron on top of one of his shirts on the board.It was only by chance that he had come into the room in time and prevented a fire.Better to be safe than sorry he thought and went inside.Reassuringly, Biddy was still reading the paper, peacefully and happy.‘Well, enough of the gardening in any case’, he thought to himself and got ready to cook lunch.Since Biddy had become ill, preparing food was another challenge for him.Even though she had been a good cook, there was now too much that could go wrong with an inattentive mind like hers: she would forget to stir, leave the gas switched on, walk away from the kitchen and start something entirely different.An accident was just waiting to happen.Walter had taken evening classes to learn the craft but he did so with little success.Some friends, neighbours and relatives chipped in by bringing food for freezing or delivering fresh food every so often, possibly because they felt unable to help in any other way.Life would be easier with ready-made meals but he resented that idea.He had set his mind on it that he would repay his wife for all the good she had done in her life by taking responsibility for the feeding of the family himself, regardless of how humble his efforts were.He had a long way to go but at least he had stopped burning most of his dishes and seemed to have grasped the basics.He was even able to make soups all by himself.He used a blender for his home grown vegetables and chose whatever needed to be eaten at the time.The ever changing and often unusual combinations of ingredients which he put together always tasted fine to him, even if Biddy often appeared less eager in devouring her portions.At the beginning of his efforts, Biddy had taught him a trick or two but she was in the dreadful beginning phase of the disease, where frustration dominated her every day and she had scolded him harshly for every mistake that he made.“No, Walter!” she had cried out when he tried to make soup.“All you get is flour clumps if you do it like this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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