My zucchini muffind look like black pudding and that wasn’t mentioned in the recipe. Recipie was from American website so maybe people in US don’t know what black pudding looks like or possibly their version looks different to Polish which is brown with grey ‘eyes’ made of buckwheat. So that’s how my muffins look like: brown with grey eyes made of zucchini.

And don’t get me wrong, I love black pudding. I love most Polish traditional foods, but I don’t like muffins that looks like black pudding.

I didn’t decide yet whether I prefer zucchini or beetroot muffins, or possibly I need to keep looking for something else that will give me the cakey kick without the calories.

Obviously I’m not sad because of muffins. I’m sad because I miss my mum. I’m unable to go and see her. It’s not very practical to be spending money on travelling when one doesn’t have a proper job, like me at the moment, but also the visits in her care home have been completely stopped. But the thing that affects my mood the most is that she’s not the same mum I used to have. I can’t have even normal conversation with her any more. She’s unable to help me with anything, like she used to (provided it was something easy).

I only realised quite a few weeks ago, when I was in Poland, that she used to always solve the problems my brother gave me. Solve wasn’t probably a good word, cover up could be a better expression. ‘Mum, I used to have 100PLN in my purse and now I only have 50. W. must have taken one note!’ – I’d say angrily and mum would get her own purse out to give me 50PLN. It didn’t even cross my mind that it was like if he stole from her. My thinking was: she’s his mum and he’s misbehaving so she needs to take responsibility and mum was playing that role very well.

Later on she’d tell him about that and obviously he would deny anything. He would start arguing if pressed for answer, but I never took part in it, in my head it was my mum’s problem, she had to sort it out.

And now I’m in the situation where my brother is probably telling people in the village what a horrible sister he has, who put mum into a private care home when he has no food and can’t pay the electricity bill. And mum can’t come and tell him off for that. I’m all by myself and I have to cope with that somehow.