It’s 4:30 am and I am awake. Rested, but awake.

Gran is mumbling to herself in her darkened room. She watched television until late last night. Why else would you mumble in your sleep? Have you seen what’s on TV these days?

When I get up after my morning mediation and enter into the passage way, the air is scented with the next vegetable soup. In lieu of not having a bread making machine in our home, I really enjoy instead waking up to the wonderful, savoury smell of a fresh batch of broth or soup. It is a thick, comforting smell that fills all of the air in the living room.

These days, approaching the middle of autumn, it is still dark outside a little later.

I had placed into our slow cooker – celery root, carrot, butternut pumpkin, potato, onion, salt & pepper, some paprika, some red capsicum and the last little bit of sweet chilli sauce that we had in a bottle along with some chicken stock.

I gave it a light blend. It was eaten for breakfast with some toasted sourdough bread swamped in butter.