Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Words On Storms And Hands On Heart Thursday 6th February 2020 I have found some new muscles to hurt, hurrah! Discovery due to the wheelbarrow being turned to rust lace, so I improvised with a rescued fish box, dragging it like a sled to spread compost around the garden. Have ordered a new barrow today; currently am sat in bed to write, and appease the aches. Washing blows on the line. Cold sunny day. The crows have chased a buzzard out of the alopecia pine. Monday 10th February 2020 Busy, Tae Kwon-Doing, social weekend. Stormy weather which inconvenienced others more than us. Sunday evening we came home to an electric outage: lit candles, lit woodburner, opened wine. Thankful for a quiet work day. Can’t even immerse myself in research as the weather seems to have stifled internet access. Several rounds of thunder and hail. Did some stretches, did some writing, including this. At home a new wheelbarrow is awaiting and somehow the washing has stayed pegged to the line. It w

Words On Loving Yourself Plan was this: to go to the woods then come home and write. I had asked my clever brother to make a graphic for me, of a phrase I use and wished to share, because it is so nearly my 50th birthday it was making me feel beneficently wise. What happened was: I was watching the happy arse of my dog as she thundered towards the river when a bundle of words arrived with a ferocity equal to her velocity, as though she had tugged them into being. Writing was done awkwardly, immediately, balanced on a knee.  These words: 'Imagine a sheet of paper, imagine you have a spoonful of ink. You fling the ink at the paper; some of it will miss. You are like this ink. But you are not this ink. You can refling yourself over and over and in doing this create something more fluid, dynamic, astounding, authentic, than anything any of us can fix to paper. Please breathe and feel your breath.  Please love yourself. Whatever doubt you are in, all

Diary Friday 1 November 2019 Might be a little hung over. Also there are boring jobs to do on computers. We get through it. Thank you coffee. Saturday 2 November 2019 Taking the early shift, I drive on a nearly deserted road through a wild storm. Surface water is travelling, like gigantic sliver-toothed silvery flatfish. I love the mild peril of my travelling. At work we dare the storm again, visiting Trelawney Garden Centre which is draped with Christmas delights. We lark about with sparkles and elf hats. We lunch. We make it back through deep puddles to watch festive films under the whirl of disco lights. Wednesday 6 November 2019 Another early morning, in which I drive towards a rising sun, a levitating half-circle, licking coffee from the corners of my mouth. Dog fidgets in the boot-space, keen to get to Exeter and jump in a river. She is thwarted as our routine has changed and now Granma Grace is up early too, wanting a shower, and takes a nap not a lie-in, in he

I had swapped my Granma-care day, necessitating another early start. Light snores greeted my arrival so although Dog had stayed home I took some air by the river. Heavy rain had made it fierce. Droves of geese and swans made grumpy looking progress against it. Winter cold leached into a brisk wind; maybe fallen leaves had stolen the warmth to make their colours. I had put my camera away in order to not view the world always through a lense, nor composed into scenes. I let it jumble. But the lone swan that Granma Grace has named Derek sat contentedly in a sizeable puddle was an image I wanted to hold on to, and share. 'See,' Derek may have been saying, 'here is an example of using one's energy not for fighting the old river, but for allowing the universe to bring you a puddle sanctuary.' 'I was thinking more - make the most of what is available.' Derek sifted water for snacks, unbothered by thoughts, whereas I went to pour coffee with a tumbling mind.

Through most of May of this year I was on a fabulous mission to appreciate, to drink life up, to be aware of every breath. This happiness is giddy, has a sense of intoxication. I didn’t have the budget for actual intoxication, there was only coffee and a genuine joy for life. This kind of pace is unsustainable, not necessarily a bad thing. As I am still reminding myself now, transition, and all of life is a transition, happens in oscillations; there is chaos, expansive and excitable, and there is anti-chaos, stabilising and reflective. I considered splitting this month into two posts, but that cuts off the cycle and it’s more useful to see it in one go, I think. I have bleeped the naughty word, rather than overdub and lose authenticity. Anyway, here I am, aged 24 and living in a less cramped shared house with a washing machine, which also accounts for some of my heady delight. ‘17 th May 1994 A morning in Wakefield watching people and patterns. If you sit for long enough they se

Oh woman! Why are you flip-flapping like a fish on a dock? Kick yourself back to the water, throw yourself to the flow of it. Have you forgotten so much, with just this slight distraction? In the back of the car, in the midst of this load of transported objects, a stack of pans strike a rhythm with every bump of the lane. In my head incessant things are shuffled round but will not make the shape of a tidy cottage. The car windows are wound down and brambles flick in. Lurch, clang, whip, we go up the rough old lane. It’s only moving from here to there, so why obsess over it: kick yourself back to the water, woman, quit flitting, you know you can swim. ‘This is an adventure,’ I observe, after a pause for consideration. Another favourite quote of mine, so favourite I remember the source: GK Chesterton, he says, ‘An adventure is an inconvenience, rightly considered.’ At Number Three, almost our new home, the electric oven is wired in. I make poached eggs for supper. W

Blaming Virginia Woolf for this outburst… describing the construction of the self as: ‘like a butterfly’s wing…clamped together with bolts of iron.’ wrote this first as a stream of consciousness exercise no punctuation just flow one word into the next it was a strong old tide indeed This morning, as my world is poised at the start of another summer storm, I broached a light rewriting, just to make it readable, and although it’s all about me (diva!) I dare to hope that the feeling of transformation in a life is familiar to all.  The urge to write comes late last night. It will not cease to pester: it fills my head with irritable fidgety creatures.  I can’t settle and neither can they.  I don’t know what they are, what strange party I am hosting here.   But there’s nothing here that is not part of my own self, even though they seem uninvited, they must be part of my mosaic, my pinterest board of butterfly wings, held with iron bolts, they cannot leave.  I make myself as a collage

From dreamt adventures, retrieve one line only: ‘If I were made of fire, this is where I would sleep.’ It’s good to start a day by intriguing yourself. Shower in the company of one spindly spider, which presses its face repeatedly to the wet tile surface, also intriguing: thirsty, saying spider prayers, frustrated, or trying not to look at the naked mammalian giant? Coffee is made. It is a pot of the last of the Trung Nguyen. A fine mist makes a horizon of mountainous island shapes, with squinted eyes I can just about create the illusion of Halong Bay. From intrigue to reverie, wander down to the Mekong Delta, wearing a superb hat. Today also (it is going well so far) brings more accolades for my Wishbone words; thank you Pins and Needles http://pinsandneedlesworcester.blogspot.co.uk/ (Who does sell some cute stuff on etsy, if you were wondering, have a peek: http://www.etsy.com/shop/sueavery ) The first four rules of the Versatile Blogger award are easily in my stride, the last

On this day, some years ago, Boy was born. He did not cry, only looked at the world exactly as though we had woken him up but, never mind, he had been thinking of waking up anyway. His nose resembled a strawberry and his hair was a chimney brush. He grew into the nose. The hair changed colour and texture but still grew upwards and outwards, thick enough to plait a rope to hold a battleship to a dock. He would keep it short on a regular basis had he not irregular parents who easily forget hair appointments. They like DIY hair, which has resulted in some minor injuries, which has resulted in a boycotting of home salon efforts. Mother of Boy takes the prize for Most Stupid Coiffeur, Amateur Division, having absentmindedly shaved Boy’s head bald. That day, Boy was about eight years younger, a slender little chap. Mother, Girl and Boy went on a grand day out to Castle Drogo, and everywhere people said ‘Oh, no, after you, please.’ Because they thought Boy might be having chemotherapy. Be

One year ago today, out swam Baby into a pool of warm water and a room of worn-out, overwhelmed, awestruck women. It’s a baby! We are dumbfounded like we had no idea. Being at the very first breath of a life has that effect. It’s weird enough that matter reproduces matter, but that a real person appears, a formative social being? Every single time: tremulous incredulity. The baby, likewise, is astonished, having no experience yet of the potential for boredom that some people find within the spectrum of existence. This is the very beginning of learning to perceive: making a relationship between light and shade, between presence and noise, between comfort and discomfort. Baby aged one year is pleased to be in the park, with toys and cake and sandwiches and people she recognizes as part of her life. She closes her eyes when the sky is too full of light. Tips her head when the breeze lifts her hair. Folded cardboard has words and pictures, like books, so she reads them. Her interpre

Engines running, while wheels are stuck static in a traffic rut. I spy a scale of negative facial arrangements. Blank. Bored. Submissive. Resigned. Irritated. Aggravated. Angry. Here and there, music plays, a happy carload bounces with seated dances and karaoke voices howl from wound down windows. My guess is correct. They are indeed, young people. I hope they can keep this feeling, not as a nostalgia; as a sustained part of their older lives. My least favoured expression; on a face, in a voice, lurking in a mind; is dissatisfaction. It is the enemy of appreciation. Mr is facing the enemy today, trying to track down a parcel, following a trail of expensive unhelpful phone numbers. He is already irritated. On a number of occasions I too have made a customer service manager feel like they have earned their annual salary in just one day. ‘No, I’m afraid I did not make a record of the name of the employee to whom I spoke. This is because I was under the delusion that you employed comp

This morning the sky is subdued, it droops over the moors, and rain fills the low gap between cloud and earth. Undeterred birds still sing. I sign for a parcel while the postman names the weather; ‘Unsettled.’  In the habit of revisiting books, seeking to turn out anything which has ceased to inspire; maybe I have outgrown it, or just absorbed it so much the original can carry its light to another shelf, I swoop a book as I pass through the front room; one I remember buying on another rainy day.  The colours drew me first; the words took me to the till with my rattling purse, tumbling pennies onto the counter. April ’93, I have written inside the cover.  Today also I seek colour; luminous, calm, luxurious colour. I think to scan the words. Instead I sit and read the whole book. Three quotes I pick out to share. Henri Matisse, son of a grain merchant, discovered his vocation by accident, given a gift of a paint set, whilst in convalescence from appendicitis. Paint on paper wak