Hearty

Hearty. My Dutch friends used it when they were talking about breakfast. 
'We'll have a light breakfast and leave before 9,' said Adrian.'
Toon didn't agree. 'I think we'll need a hearty breakfast,' he said. 'We have a long drive ahead of us.'
'Alright, a hearty breakfast then.'

It's not a word I'd ever use for breakfast. Light, maybe. Continental (reading aloud from hotel menus - I like to clarify and share information about what's available to eat). Big. Cooked. Fried. But never hearty. Hearty has a tweed jacket, green wellingtons, kedgeree and cocked-shotgun feel about it to me and there was never a lot of call for the latter on the council estate where I grew up. Unless the shot-gun was sawn-off.

But it sounds right for Toon and Adrian, perhaps because English is their second language and while they don't have a trace of accent when they speak it, and they speak it beautifully too, they occasionally use words that mother-tongue English speakers might not. But this only adds to the richness, the colourfulness, of their conversation: you only have to read what 'hearty' suggested to me to be convinced of that.

But there's another reason why the word suits them so well: they are hearty themselves in the sense of their relationship being full of heart, of kindness and consideration towards each other. When I've spent time with them I am aware of the love that surrounds them like light filling a room.

I don't think I know many other couples like that. Perhaps it's partly due to them meeting later in life.
Toon once told me that he'd prepared himself for being alone in middle and old age, hadn't expected to find this kind of happiness.

I like real love stories. Love stories that bloom in details of ordinary life. The kind of love UA Fanthorpe talks about in her poem, 'Atlas':  There is a kind of love called maintenance,/ Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;/ Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget/ The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs/

The kind of love that makes you a hearty breakfast when you need one:

My Sunday breakfast, with love from Tony



Hungry Writing Prompts

1. Write a memory about a friend.
2. Write about speaking a different language.
3. Write about a heart.
4. Write a list of the ordinary tasks that fill your day.
5. Write about having breakfast.