Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

So after the ear infection cleared up the shoulder injury happened – I don’t know how, might be tendonitis, but that was almost under control and then plantar fasciitis (painful foot thing) made an appearance and then the shoulder thing came back worse and the pain robbed my sleep and everything is a disaster without the respite of sleep. Yes, undeniably, this was the scenario. Yet also one does not wish to be defeated by this, it’s one layer of reality only. Reasons to be cheerful is a nice long list too. Family, friends, garden, van, beach, moors, rivers, woods, an actual sunny summer!  So I was tired when I drove to Bristol, had to stop at Taunton Deane services to attempt a power nap; compromised with a fresh walk and a punch of coffee. Finding Temple Gate car park took an additional travel round a busy block, but I made it, I met my friend Jen and sometime over the last 27 years her hugging skills have improved. Jen loves an itinerary so we went t

We took Granma Grace for a garrulous walk around Pince’s Gardens. To get there we went over the river on the busy bridge, under the road through chirpy subway graffiti, along dusty Alphington (which Dog did not like) under a railway bridge of rough red stone, through quieter streets which once was all grand houses and some survived the bombs of the Second World War, and in the gaps modern boxes were built, and pretty trees grow, and hydrangeas and fuschias make appealing hedges. There was a boy lived this way once, his name was Gordan, his house was called Kingsley, number 38, it backed to the allotments where his father grew vegetables of many kinds. Grace smiles. This is where Grandad Gordan lived when they first met. They would walk around Pince’s Park (which was built in 1912 and also survived bombs) and that was, she thinks, 70 years ago, at least. We are, at this point in her tale, in the Gardens, coming out from under a magnolia tree, about to step under the wisteria ar

Friday  Dartmoor, on the night of the blood moon: we found a spot to park, walked ill shod to a set of tors - not too far, keeping markers in sight - the weather was coming in, blowing mist.  Mist when stirred can thicken fast.  We did not think we would see the red moon through the cloud but we walked anyway and climbed and felt the air around us and the pulse of the earth beneath. Wild horses were calling. The sky darkened. We tumbled back to the van to chop up vegetables and heat oil. Dog lay on her stinky cushion under the table, disdaining the clean water provided. Rain fell, a soft kind of rain.  Mist was an intermediary between day and night.   Someone somewhere will have a view of the red moon, the lunar eclipse. We have this.  Wednesday  Before the heat rose Granma Grace and I strolled out. The quayside was in pre-bustle: shopkeepers propping signs for coffee or furniture or the lure of cake, bright kayaks being hauled in lines;

The ear infection morphed; became a mufflement of the outer world. A sense of chrysalis held: gentle, un-claustrophobic, welcome.  I had gone to the beach and seen the low sun reach rich orange across the sea till it churned in foam, tumbled at my feet. I had swum and felt the water lift me. Mr and I had been buying, just lately - proper, from a vendor, consumerist buying - things to make our lives heavenly, like changing robes to keep us warm should we swim into the winter months, like a chrome book for writing while in transit (literally, in a Ford Transit). Stuff we will appreciate, use to pieces - but previously would have been determined to forego.  Are we greedy? Are we hypocrites now?  I had been pushing myself, thinking that I must push myself, deeply engaged with the analogy of caterpillar becoming butterfly - a caterpillar will become a butterfly, it will happen - just as our lives will unfold to fullness when we get our bit of land and can be putting int

These hot days steam by. They desiccate. Grass is pale, brittle, like old parchment. Everything without shade is crotchety, dust, fetid, or sheltering in water. I have been all of these, and the last three days each a long shift with bare respite. And my ears become stoppered with infection. This hot world becomes silent.  Bees move flower to flower, birds turn, open beaks, there are leaves twitching, soundless. Did this air on skin always feel like a tumble of morning petals? Um, yes. And the smell of the warming earth under dew, yes, that has ever been my treasure.  But having a sense impaired, also yes, the focus on what is left is re-treasured; the sense of moment blooms, re-blooms.  Meditative appreciation, under-grumbled with intermittent pain.  As some people get tattooed for decorative reasons but some require each etch to bear meaning - I am in need of learning from every ailment. (I try to just be ill sometimes, not much success.) The outside w

On the longest day: rise early, missing sleep. Drive towards the risen sun, sunglasses perched. Across the cobbles of Exeter Quay snick-snicks an urban fox, slips quick paced under cover of scratchy shrubs.  At the home of Granma Grace, an ambulance is summoned (spoiler alert: this turns out okay). Paramedics Julia and Maria are asking us about end of life care: revive, we say, the quality of life is diminishing, the interest in it not piqued at all. At the hospital, our Grace is so lovely everyone must be lovely by return. She brings the sparkle.  A doctor brings her toast with maramalade, both paramedics pop in to see how she’s doing. We’re home in time to broil chicken for her lunch, she’s having a good food day.  (Angina medication to be revised.) Back home there’s Grandchild 2 picking strawberries, she tells me a whale’s tongue weighs as much as an elephant. A cold wind whips up around us, a lovely respite. We head for Bude, for two hot hours of tra

At the house of Granma Grace artefacts line each shelf.  There's a lady in a yellow dress, she's been waltzing for years – decades – caught in a turn, petticoats fixed in a spin - she looks to her absent partner.  There's a lady in festive red, and three more china beauties above dressed for spring, delicate, all looking to an absent return of gaze.  On the room's highest shelf a china couple are fixed, blue and white, a dab of yellow, an accordion on his lap, they both look ahead. Toby jugs flank them, one has a roughly groomed beard.  Below, in her adjustable chair, Granma nods her head in sleep.  Myself, sat on the sofa adjacent, I would not pick out her life in figurines. I would think of a tablecloth - something just as pretty with cotton lace, with embroidered flowers, with variable shades of white where food stains had been scrubbed out, where one of us had spilt ketchup, another had splashed wine.  Today I heated her breakfast milk, sh

I am listening - by which I mean absorbing - by which I mean I am becoming part of this - as though easing into the sea, arms and legs afloat, just drifting. I am tired.  Last night I was tired - but the evening air was so refreshing and my garden was there in the magic dusk, glowing with iris and rose and dots of closing day flowers and the bath-pond so little yet in its stillness infinite deep and I grew to be awake, alive, embracing.  Then it was midnight so I took a glass of dark wine to let sleep find me. Indoors was hot, I opened a window wide, then sleep did find me though twas all tumbled up, as though I had slept in storm waves.  Then it was birds shrieking, singing, it was 4.55am, sleep had fled, untraceable.  Pulled on garden clothes, went out to pour water on plants, ready for a hot day. I knew I would be at work, missing out, glad for bills paid, longing for my own land and no alarm clocks - the birds can wake me and I will find naps in hammocks, I w

Granddaughters (aged 4, aged 6) in my hammock, reading a joke book. “Why did the chicken cross the road, roll in the dirt and cross back again? Because it was a dirty double crosser!” Grandchild 5 (aged 1) has a hot-tired-left-out grump going on so I scoop her up, the whole squishy chunk of her, and she snuggles her head to my shoulder. Plan: put blanket in the other hammock, to cover the bump of the knot work, to make a cozy nest. Problem with plan: forgetting this sling of string has been left out all winter and is likely to be perilously frayed. We fell through it.  I hit the metal frame, G5 bounced unharmed off my ribcage, runs off wailing. The six year old retrieves her as Granma is caught in the net. (Soft tissue soreness, wrenched, crunched, dignity obliterated, nothing serious.) Granddaughters (aged 4, aged 6) have found their favourite joke of the afternoon: “You fell through the hammock, Granma! You were stuck!” Granma rather likes the