Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Yesterday I walked in the small woods. Up the steep slips of fallen leaf. Found myself under a dome of tree cover. Something about it caught my attention - the circularity, the floor of dark leaves, when the rest of the woods is strewn with fern and bramble. There was only the sighs of autumn leaves to be heard, high above. I raised my eyes, un-expectant, to where an owl was asleep. Yellow eyes opened: we stared at each other. I willed it to read my questions. I have much to ask. Time paused. Then the owl flew. I clearly heard the brisk rustle of its feathers. I had never before woken an owl. I walked out of the cut field into redemptive rain. Just before home, the rain stopped. Out of the hedge, two ripe strawberries were gathered. In the night, bad dreams came. In the morning nothing factual remains, only the fear. Had the owl answered my questions? I hoped not. I went back to the small woods. Today the sun shone, the owl was not at home. Dog sprang a deer o

Ida and Dennis at West Bay I just wanted to listen to the wind and the fat trunked ash. The branches, leafless all spring, all summer; in autumn there is nothing to drop but weathered wood. A tree surgeon is booked. A gap in the skyline is coming. Ivy shimmies on the bare shoulders of our old giant. It stands where it has always stood, where once it was supple in the breezes that fly the length of this river valley. Solid seeming, patterned skeletal, neural, calmly falling to pieces. Seasons turn. Change comes. Unplanted, we make our paths through obstacles, and according to which view we seek. The roots of people are moveable, nourished by dreams. 8th September 1925, Burnley, Lancashire: a girl is born, a first child. Her name is Ida. Four more children follow her into this family. Through the 1930s where work and food are scare, she looks after this brood while her parents look for work. Things are shoeless, hungry. Two of her sisters take ill: they die. 1939:

Overnight the spiders had washed their webs and hung them out to dry on the hedge. I imagine spiders with pegs, with silk aprons and peg pockets and curlers in their hair. While the webs blow on the line they brew pots of coffee and settle at a table with a piece of bluebottle toast. But the butterflies! They seem drunk on life, bumping in-out of leaves, slurring their flight, waving their bright wings. Have they been dancing all night? Are their shoes all worn through? They will knock over the spiders’ best china, barging about like that. The spiders seem stoic about it. Life is a gamble, they say, and thumb through their cookbooks.

Some garden crops lie ready for reap. The rocket (arugula) though flowering still, is falling back. Seed pods turn to parchment, holding bumps of ink. Pumpkin leaves smother the beet, they over-reach - abundant bullies. Some of our tomatoes have been picnicked by mice. Seeds dropped hither and thither: they are not tidy, these mice. Autumn starts with renewed purpose. Fruition is the beginning not the end. On goes the pan, to boil up jam, ketchups, chutney. Some nights curl in, as a coverlet. Not this night, this early September eve; this uncovers, supersedes. We lose the illusory day and are left breathless. Facing darkness we are reached by pins of starlight. Distance in galactic scales: still they reach us. We are moth-like, small parcels of heart and instinct. It is the winter’s cold strike that readies the seed. The pull of the stars that wakes us.

Round bales carapaced in black, in the fields, in formations. Clouds that blew in from an oil painting, circa 1700. Love how the trees lean from a predominant onshore. Our white car, new, we even keep it clean, drives by the crossroads where the sheep thief was buried. Circa? Imagine the dirt under his fingernails; why this detail? They hanged him on Gallows Hill. Up in the town they beheaded a priest, circa 1600. Not the same ‘they’ as in people, the same ‘they’ as in upholders of the law. Home is mildly clean, swept, the garden tangled, verdant. So what’s the right thing to do? This history that leads to here, this present time stuck with bits of beautiful, bits of raw inequality? From global to local, the thread that leads to my own door? Where does this go? Simple advice to myself: it is up to me, just what I do. Avoid apathy. Buy local, there’s a start, make your own bread. Hand over the earth with minimal apology. Broken necks are vivid stories: keep the

It is possible that we did. Track through the maize jungle, doused in rain. We were monkeys, giggling. Slunk big cats, louche, fantastic. Bright birds. Or maybe it was something we thought of: today’s adventure could be… Trespass through the living crop. Maize grows with toes, it can, at any time, rise up. Run on its toes like raptors. Leaves wide as machetes. Take nothing for granted in here. Rain forest magic in here. We have our best adventure-trousers on, and Wellington boots. It is possible. Anything is.

It must be a year since the damsons were planted, and the meadow grass grew its gold splay, and now we have it just right to backlight this spiderweb. A garden takes time but returns it in increments of moments that somehow contain timelessness; like the sun can be caught in one raindrop, perhaps, reflective magic.  This morning Mr is finishing a sleep that began on the sofa last night. Dog was curled on her bed, Fat Beagle had taken the vacant man-space, before we went out for our garden wander. The mist was thickest over the river. We walked in dots and all the while the sun was clearing it up. I have my coffee mug, and my camera, a slouchy t-shirt, old shorts. Two dogs snuffling, for scent-gossip and their favourite grass snacks. ‘Look at this web.’ I say, but they just stare down to the river.

Of beach and field and chips and ice cream, of campfire stories with smoke and marshmallows, of flickery lights and buttered vegetables, of a whale skull and wide skies and unexpected swimming, one holiday is assembled. Never dressed in day clothes much before midday. Breakfast served in waves of impulse; eggs and toasts, and bits of fruit peel piling on a picnic table. Dogs underfoot, wanting to help with anything we might drop. Children cook at the mud kitchen, making delicious cups of mud, but sometimes they are not children, they are snow leopards and puppies, or ponies, or cows called Betsy. Grandad gets tethered to a tree; again. Wet clothes lump on warm stones; dry ones rescued from a tide stranded rock. Laughing: we spend some time on that. At night we follow the lines of flames, up, up; all of us struck, over and over, with every sliver, every glint, that there are the stars of our origin. What else could we need?

Widdershins, barefoot, slowly walk around the block, around the lanes that lay around the fields, warm road sometimes flat, sometimes not.  Kick small stones from a bold instep. Pods of storm cross overhead. The maize crop has grown, enough to whisper secrets. Leaves shiver, clustered like spears. Sun on puddles makes them shining pieces of dropped sky.  In the river tethered clouds skim and bump.  Here, flip-flops in hand, just walking, listening, absorbing. Later, hear the wind shake; shake the light from the sky. Rayburn lit. Water hot. Light a candle, take a bath. Water on skin. Rain on glass. See steam droplets on tiles, sparkled by a naked flame.

Next-door have a cat, a great advantage in the discouragement of rats. But here on the ground is a fledgling; feathered, with wobbly flight skills, a wagtail chick. This should not be cat food. Dog pays it scant attention, until I pick it up. Then she gives a look that announces both her acceptance of the situation and her opinion that I am a traitor. The fledgling sits in my hand. It too looks at me. Tiny mites climb all over it. They dot my hands. I get some dust and a box to bath my new friend. It remains unstartled. There’s no further sight of Next-door Cat so the fledgling is allowed back to play around the flowerpots. Parent birds are watching. I am watching. It hops out to watch me. The urge to name it is strong. Next I find a bee afloat in a tub, and pick that up. It revives, and walks up and down my arm and will not leave until it has rubbed its legs and buzzed its wings back to health. I sit in the polytunnel, Dog lies out in the shade. The bee walks, it

First pans on: no time for photographing after this! The first thing the grown ups say is ‘Remind me again why I’m doing this?’ The team leaders are thinking of the 5am wake ups, the number of times one child can lose a shoe, or need the toilet, or answer your question about where did you put your shoe with an anecdote about a hamster. (The shoe will be in the first place they looked for it, but not until you look for it too. Shoes are magic like that.) This year I am not team leading: I am on the kitchen crew. I don’t know what it is that I should be wondering why I’m doing it, it’s never been done by me before. Everyone should have a try at kitchen crew in order to fully appreciate the work that goes on to get the masses fed and the dishes washed. It starts and ends with heavy lifting. I’ve seen the bespoke field oven and the fry table and the gas bottles in place every year and never thought they were easy to shift about. Closing gap between knowledge and experi

Here she is. Petal pink, goosey fatted She had been dreaming of light A sky light A sky opened up for her Into air she swam; part aquatic part rosebud grown from the warm bed of her mother - humidity nothing for her but reminiscence - Her father breathes deep, for joy barely, for amazement She breathes: is moving - one thing to dream of light another to meet it - The singular miracle closes her eyes Sleep, sleep will make sense of it They will wake up, of course The new parents. To look at her. They have been dreaming of this light too. Here she is.

This well earned smirk, caught on film. The car slides to a halt. All systems fail. A few hours later I am happy because I can move my head. But I was all ready very happy. These events are not directly connected. Or they are. Shall I begin with a beginning? The Chap, known then as Boy; although his sister being seven years his senior often led to the absentminded title of Maid, and I would pretend I had said Mate; since the age of four, had wanted to be a carpenter. Had his own tools, collected from birthdays, from approving relatives. Had graduated to power tools. Eight years an intended carpenter, this Boy, until the age of 12 brings him to a bigger school and a reconsideration. Carpentry will be a hobby, now, he says, he might be bored with it otherwise. He will become a Naval Officer instead. Okay. Mum is fine with supporting her children. Some things like committing atrocities she would not support, but this urge seems humanitarian. He mentions (in this order)

We say, if he doesn't put his toys away, does that mean he no longer cares for them? They could be gathered up easily in a bin bag, bundled to a charity shop? I’ll get new ones at Christmas, says Grandchild 1. Okay then. (But maybe he remembers that time at the Eden Project when Granma took his ice cream away?) He tidies some stuff, it makes his arms slow and heavy. Somewhere on tv are his parents, dots in a damp field, best-friend dots drinking cider up and watching bands, holding hands, eating good food, good simple important stuff. We look for the blue tent. There are a lot of blue tents. Humph. Grandchild 4 has a bump, holds his hands up for Grandad. Gets cuddles. Comfort. We go to run in the park, the one that is just grass. It will be boring, Grandchild 1 huffs. They have races. He is the fastest. Look at this tree he says, it’s tiny, but it’s a tree! He finds a dock leaf for his nettle sting. The nettles are taller than him. He looks up, sees the sk

Homewards, driving, the film of existence is over exposed. Gold-glare where the road should have been. It has a thickness, this light, a liquidity. We are swallowed in it, guessing the route. We guess close enough, close enough to get home unscathed. Half a moon hangs in the sky there, a lace clad performer waiting for applause. All the blue deepens. The sun dips to a spotlight, gives the moon centre stage. A bottle of champagne crouches in the fridge. A note from Houseguest Ben, out at his Leavers’ Day celebrations, is propped over the oven: I had seen him earlier, suited and booted, off to have fun. We are to have a glass of champagne, he says, a thank you, he says: if there’s any left could he have another glass, it is rather nice. A toast we drink, to all of our children and all of their guests. Whatever else is achieved, is a script to be interpreted, is our encore.

Here are photographs of the revisited former Fin Whale, with apologies to anyone who finds this gruesome. It would be more fabulous to see it live and swimming wild. Grandchild 2, although impressed by the size of bones, mostly found it stinky.