Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Everything we had planned for today got postponed for a mundane but pleasant list of reasons. Out came the sun. Disciplined me used the extra time to catch up on sensible work indoors, which is not a bad thing, but in a bid for a balanced life and a need to atone for yesterdays grump, a run to the beach was, in retrospect, inevitable. Mr, Dog and me piled into my scruffy car and unpiled at Widemouth Bay, low tide. I walked down the beach and forgot to stop until me, my clothes and my Dog were in the sea. It was more extreme paddle than swimming. The water was cold but the kind that skin can acclimatise to. Mr is not convinced. Mr is amused. The waves catch a beneficent wind, spray rises in a plume. In the shelter of the car door I do the traditional clumsy changing from wet clothes to spare sarong. I must have a ‘Just Add Water’ Acme Happiness Device fitted. Drove home perfectly balanced, after cleaning the salt from my shades. A buzzard rises over the car, and I toy with the idea t

Everyone has the odd bad day, no matter how fabulous the philosophy or the view or the shoes.  It didn’t start badly. There was a chill mist opaquing a fat sun, which sight I smiled at as I drove to do my bringing up Baby shift. My grey check lace ups were looking cool, pressing the pedals in my clunky quirky car. Baby was hilarious. Today she crawled out of the kitchen after raiding the washing machine, holding a clean vest in her mouth like a small animal off to cozy up a den. At home, Mr and I sat outside with our diaries and espressos and talked dates while a buzzard patrolled the fields.  I have had some emails back from letting agencies, because we might need to move. This is the first prang into my usual perkiness. Impending upheaval and empty pockets, this gets to the crux of the slump. I am allowed a certain quota of slumpage, I tell myself, even if I don’t like it. What I am not allowed to do is keep any, or dump it on other people. At this point, I cheer myself up with

And here we are, sprung forward an hour into British Summer Time. This daylight saving time scheme is also known as Western European Summer Time and is practised in the Canaries, Portugal, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, the   Channel Island Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey , and the Isle of Man , as well as the UK. Whatever we are calling it, the sun feels obligingly bubbling hot. It’s a spring heat but winter being the nearest season we have for comparison, it seems hotter than it is. In a temperate climate, and especially if you should happen to live in a rain-belt, a sunny day is something to leap on. I have jumped as far as the sun lounger, sprawled back on full tilt, flip flops kicked off. Dog lies down, chewing a bit of grass. Last night’s bonfire gives out a shudder of dew-damped ash. I watch aeroplane trails smudge and disperse, while a little blue butterfly sits on a honeysuckle leaf, like a flake of sky.

Today is so laid back, it doesn’t even think of starting before ten hours have ticked by on the clock. Not that we observe the clock much, on such a pleasantly indolent day. Warm mist hovers over the horizon, a balmy breeze blows, the sun is testing its strength. It is a day designed for pottering or surfing. I think of the lovely waves, of being suspended between sea and sky, and the salt smell, and the joy of sitting on the beach, reclothed, warmed up, exhausted, looking at the ocean and my mind still playing in the waves. Tempting, but not the resting I’m supposed to be doing. If you don’t rest, you don’t get better. The best thing about being ill is the flood of happy relief when you get better. That’s the wave I decide to wait for, while I alternate an amble with a spate of sun lounging, while I watch the buzzard on the thermals, and my mind is paddling in a sea of possibility. Mr has just lit the bonfire, so I’m going back outside now to stare at stars and fire sparks. 

Sun follows mist, so this afternoon I am able to lie on the sun lounger and read. I am trying to ignore the symptoms of being ill, but craftily resting to speed recovery. Maladies are not popular with me. They interrupt play. The plus side is, on resting, one can practice calm quiet skills like the art of self-awareness, which is importantly distinct from selfishness. Although while I take the time to lie on the sun lounger, gripped by the actions of an entertaining thriller, immersed in sun, faintly aware of the birds’ blathering and Dog’s wish for me to throw stuff, I have a teeny weeny epiphany: if this is selfish, a bit of it must be healthy for me. Having recalled this valuable lesson, I am disappointed that the illness doesn’t immediately evaporate.  (A self portrait, aged impatiently 14, with a style debt to Ronald Searle)

Nearing midday, I’ve just rewoken. I tried wakefulness at seven, but it didn’t feel right, and I didn’t have any responsibilities I couldn’t shirk. Before I crawled back into bed I walked past the dressing up box, noticing the dark hunch of a big house spider in the folds of a white tutu. Even if one feels poorly, any day where one sees a spider in a tutu has got to be a good day. Tegenaria domestica is a chunky looking species, so she has probably not got a place in the corps de ballet. I think it is a she not because of the costume but her healthy size; females of this species can live for seven years in quiet indoor places. Outside, where cold weather will limit a spider’s lifespan to just one year, the moors are shrouded under mist, the treetops are still, I hear Mr thwacking the axe through firewood.  The spider is still in the white folds of tutu netting, maybe it seems like a web to her. I put her in the Bromeliad instead, which is in a rare flowering mood. 

The sun ricochets into our bedroom this morning, bouncing all over us. The sky is split in two. Upper strata of a mid to light grey sinks down over a still pool of blue. I watch the slow cloudslide while poaching two eggs and brew coffee. Boy drops his dinner coins down the side of the sofa, and needs assistance to venture into a crevasse of dog hair, reminding me that at some point in my life I might need to do some housework. I wander outside to see the sky without a glass barrier and clear thoughts of sofa detritus before sitting down to enjoy breakfast. Boy leaves for school, striding the lane under the last stripe of blue. I observe the dark-dipped sky. Expectation says this is how today will look, grey-shaded, but the cloud doesn’t stop sinking down into the blue, leaving just a few bits bobbing in a late afternoon sunspot. 

Today is the official poise between day and night hours. But it clashes with a rare day to devote to writing and illustrating so I only know that because I just read it on Facebook. I still walk out with Dog. The air is so full of birdsong there’s no room for weather today. My head is packed with bits of story, squashed in like a badly packed suitcase. It gives me a concentration headache and then I drink too much coffee and feel a bit queasy. Described as such this does not sound like a successful day, but all I describe here is the cover, and the book inside it, my own personal journal of today, is perfectly poised and happy with what I have achieved. So happy, it’s bordering on obnoxious. 

The lane daffodils are in the full burst of flower. The orchard daffodils flurry to catch up. The grass patch daffodils are still green. They have not long since pushed up, a cheeky phallic mob of chlorophyllic buds, waving in the wind as I drive past. I can imagine them heckling me, but I can’t think what they might be saying. Something immature, slightly out of earshot, mischievous, a daffodil in-joke. It’s a bright sharp spring day. Fat white clouds shuffle across a classically blue sky. When the sun drops, the stars have the night to themselves. They are much older than even the lane daffodils, and do not need to heckle anyone. 

Firstly, a coffee in a Wetherspoons, Bristol. I am mostly thinking how happy I am to own prescription sunglasses, for on the drive up I have seen, in sharp, perfect detail, so many trees throwing mad shapes in hedges and fields; dead looking stumps with stabby branches, the type of fir trees that grow on mountains in oriental paintings, sweet fluffy buds of willow. Then it occurs to me how much attention I pay to trees, and maybe this is a good opportunity to watch people instead. A lady at the bar, at 10am, is reaching for a pint. ‘It’s my birthday, tomorrow,’ she explains. I look at the faces, weary from drinking, and they all have their stories, but mostly, after roughly three or four minutes, I am missing the trees. Then we follow a rainbow, which leads us to Telford. I think the rainbow might be lost. Secondly, a vodka soda in a Wetherspoons, with friends, before Mr and me slink back to our hotel. There are hardly any pavements on this leg of the journey so we sling our le

Been a while since I checked the old diaries. There are lots of entries for 1994, despite how busy I was, I wrote everywhere, I was so excited by my discoveries. Although I do start with a bit of bitching… maybe if you could have heard the nonsense those poor desperate to impress boys were spouting, you would have thought ‘tongue scissors’ too. If I could revisit this scene I think I would just laugh, being older and generally more tolerant. The crap I refer to is their banter, not daughter’s charming dinosaur centric babble. ‘On the train. Oh dear. How many stories can you begin with ‘me and my mates, right’…. I’m sure they’re very nice, individually, but I wish I’d brought my tongue scissors. Daughter not stopped talking either but at least she’s not freezing my imagination with tales of how she fished for Yorkshire. To distract me from this crap I’ll think about yesterday’s walk on the beach. I went to talk to the sea about losing the train ti

The mist has lifted up to be more conventional, to lay across the firmament, easily identifiable as cloud. Indecision has not left the sky. Over the fuzz of cloud and the chill wind, the solid warmth of sun is waiting. Will the opportune moment come today, or will rain prevail? It could go either way. Mr and I walk up from the field, each with a cut slim branch on a shoulder. We step side by side, mindful of the possibility of a very literal slapstick injury. Experience has taught us well. We watch a pheasant slink up from under the cover of the big oak. Dog runs, nose to ground, but does not find it this time, neither did we see where it hid. The birds are very purposeful this time of year. Two wagtails fly in the confines of a hawthorn, round and through, oblivious to sharp spines and human presence, caught in a territorial dispute. Mr tells me two black belts were fighting at the top of the lane, and would not stop even with the car driving at them. He meant blackbirds. 

Last night the mist was missing. The sky was full of stars instead, and much taller than I’d remembered it. I wasn’t sure what this morning would bring, and I’m still not sure. It is the exact pivotal point between fine rain and mist, so for want of a more definitive word, I call it cloud. Mr has gone to tackle the shopping, while I have taken on the washing up and walking Dog, and, just to be flash, I have also wrestled a pile of unclean clothes into the washing machine. While the dishes drip-dry and the laundry tumbles, Dog walking is done. We discover Mr’s latest work, a neat wall of cut alder logs. They share a colouration, but each log is subtly different in size and twists of shape, a pleasing irregularity within the context of conformity, which I point out to Dog. In response she requests that I throw the ball. The rest of the tree is already up at the house, brought by wheelbarrow and strong leg muscles. The roots of the tree are in the hedge, bringing in nourishment to

I am the first one awake this morning. It’s quiet except for the spring-frisky birds. Yesterday evening the mist was a soft blanket, hanging it out overnight has damply chilled it. Dog follows me outside, listens to the birdsong and seems to shrug before returning indoors to rediscover sleep. Cat stretches her back for scratching. She is purring before I’ve put my hand on her lumpy fur. Since Dog is happy snoozing and the air is cold I opt to settle on the sofa with coffee, toast and laptop. When the toast pops up the rest of the house wakes up, like some kind of sympathetic magic. While I am drinking my coffee, Boy talks. While my laptop bings into life, Mr tells me about things I need to finish the accounts. The TV is turned on. Feet tread the stairs in search of things. The marmalade is delicious. 

At half past noon I am lying in a bath. The water is hot, it smells of nice soap, bubbles make map shapes on the flat surface. The window is pushed open wider than usual and the tall geranium flower is peering out at the blue sky. Mr, Dog, me and my wet hair all walk round the fields and it’s too sunny to be wearing a scarf but you don’t really know that till you’re half way round. Being in good spirits we play the target game with the ball and the throw-sticks. I get two good hits on the post (requires moderate skill) and one close touch on the high wire target (requires excellent skill.) The high wire mark is a ball-on-a-rope dog toy that Mr threw one day and it never came down. It has been there for years now, we have watched it fade from fluorescent orange to a blotchy pale peach, like a bloated zombie goldfish. 

Mr draws back the curtains this morning and his head is literally in the clouds. All there is to be seen of the usual scenery is the top of the holly tree. Everything else is light grey. At 10am some more trees begin to evolve, which the noisy birds will be glad about. Foreground extends to the fields, mid ground and beyond is diffused sunlight. Updating the website slides from routine easy to I Don’t Know Why This Is Happening, at which point I look up and save myself from frustration by going outside and drinking tea while the buzzards circle over the fields. By lunchtime, only the edges of the world are hazy. We toss washing on the line and hoist it into a light breeze with much satisfaction. I have always loved that sight. It always tells you where you are in life. After training, I walk out into the car park, too hot to do up my coat, and the cooling mist tide has rolled back in. 

Early this morning I let Dog outside, and the world had disappeared. Mist swirled like the dawn of time. Then the sun shimmered through, smiling at the deception. I lie out on the green sun-lounger, reading a book on symbolist drama. The washing line is in full use. Six buzzards ride thermals far above, wing feathers outstretched. As they spin away, a fleet of clouds arrives, neatly spaced. If Dog would stop dropping stones on me, I would be asleep. I wonder what I would dream of. There is a quote in the book that I re-read; ‘What we have to do is to bring poetry into the world in which the audience lives and to which it returns when it leaves the theatre; not to transport the audience into some imaginary world totally unlike its own, an unreal world in which poetry is tolerated.’ [TS Eliot, from Poetry and Drama , 1951] I recognise the intention, although its possible that I live in an unreal world and my tolerance of poetry is actually unnatural. 

Set off driving as the sun was rising. It was shy about it, coyly remaining behind cloud until mid morning when we were walking indoors, away from the delicious spring day. A coffee after a long drive is an under rated pleasure. My brain has a healthy flush of opened capillaries. Around the middle of the afternoon we are back in the car for the long drive home. Me, and my passenger, have been learning how to organise competitive fights. We are too injured (one does not say ‘old’) to compete these days, so helping other people is the next best thing. We talk of this and admire the landscape. I love how the tree branches are formed like brain stems. The clouds are pretending to be mountains. On the home stretch, passenger safely delivered, there is just me in the car as the sun disappears. Just me, winding the car through the dark and the mist, under the tree tunnels, over the river, back to home where the wood burner blazes and the pork stew is hot. Mr hands me a glass of wine. 

Mr has picked a ridiculous day to have his birthday this year, a day in which he has to get up early and work till late. He is treated to a cup of tea in bed, and last night we had cake for supper. I have an early hurried start and it’s not until midmorning I realise that my underwear is inside out. Since grumpy baby has capitulated to nap time I sit down and watch the athletic competition on TV. Long distance women run the track, they look like beautiful hunters, slender and solidly lithe, in pursuit of medals. Outside the sun loiters behind cloud cover, maybe it can’t decide what to wear today. Sometimes a cloud shakes out a pouf of fine rain.

Sun sifts through cloud, fattens up the buds on the blackthorn tree. It percolates; spring is the season of percolation. First lambs, born in the frost, are plumping up, new lambs have slithered into a green world, edged with budded hedges. It feels like wakefulness, after winter’s deep important dreaming. While the earth dreams, I am awake in the cold. When the sun arrives, I drowse in light and heat, my mind wanders like a curious breeze. Every experience has its own beauty. The buds of spring have obvious prettiness, conversely easy to take for granted. They require as much careful attention as anything that I observe. My favourite season is always the one I’m in. But if I had to pick one, it would be the summer of 1976, because I was six and recall it all in Technicolour, garish, kitsch, hyper-real. Every day the sun shone, we swam in the sea and we ate ice cream. My swimsuit was the reddest object on the planet.