Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Over the fields this morning, a hot air balloon. It is the shape of a light bulb, like the valley has just had an idea. Tethered to Fat Beagle, I follow far behind, along the top path, the closest I can get to climbing into the basket. Dog, who can be trusted to return, runs free. Fat Beagle is pleased to be out on the tasty sheep poo snack trail. The chunky tail wags. Foxgloves are in flower, vertical globules of pinkish purple. We all go back to the house for some wholesome breakfast. Under a wide brimmed hat, I sit, legs tucked under the pallet table, to finish shading the picture of the ink-drinking monkey. Last time I was out here the wind stole my eraser. All I could find on the ground nearby was a half chewed mouse. This did not seem a fair exchange, not for me, nor mouse. The air does not move, today, and the little body lies still in situ. It transpires, from Mr’s venturing into town, that the letting agency write badly worded letters. The whole big scary amount is not u

From the collection 'Sublimely Cheerful Postcards' Last night, I read this quote, and then, of course, had to write. Curtain Call was my first title idea, but this morning I prefer ‘Encore;’ it holds the sense of something to continue. The metaphor shifts, but the sense of tiredness is sustained, so the title is all that I have changed: ‘I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes... and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so’. Joyce Carol Oates I could write all night. But then I would be tired. Thinking of sitting here, with the window open, just tapping out all the changes in the air. But there are other things that need my attention. Time to shut down, conserve energy, regroup my scatty, distracted self. But, first, a little light writing to direct my dreams. Stream out some sentences,

The window is open all night. Whatever the weather did then, I slept through it. Woke to coolness, to a low sky of watercolour greys. Boy is up, eating cheese on toast. Boy looks at his watch. His morning routine is breakfast and cop drama. This morning some fanatical plot to reintroduce smallpox is not quite foiled yet. In principle, I do not like tv and breakfast. In practice, Boy relaxes happy before hitting the exam desk. ‘You can have a lift,’ I say, stirring soya milk into a bowl of oats. My breakfast is paler than the sky. The big news today should be the big cheque handed to the letting agent. If we don’t pass the credit check, there is no refund. At this point, homeless and penniless thoughts haunt every level of our minds. One attends to practical acts to appease uneasy spirits, such as the dogs need walking, then we should write a menu plan. As we are striding across the corner of the lowest field, out of habit eyeing up wood sources, a marvellous thing flies by, a dar

Hard gummed Baby, slimed in drool, falls deceivingly swiftly to sleep. The heat or the teeth or an unknown third option turns the night into a series of walks connecting bed and cot. As birdsong trebles through an open window, Baby is wedged into bed between grandparents. As the sun rises, she sits up, claps hands, slaps Mr Grandad on the shoulder. Rain falls heavy, it’s still hot, the birds call. Downstairs the clock reads 5.55am. Baby rubs a piece of jammy toast over her hair. I reach for a mug the size of a god’s forearm. My sense of scale is half asleep. But it is a big mug. It is filled with a quagmire of coffee. At this hour, caffeine is best served with cartoons. Mostly dabbed clean of blackcurrant, Baby bobs about the room, delighted by two dogs, a drawer of toy cars, a spoon and a brick. She miscalculates clearance height under the coffee table; refuses comfort; demands comfort; slouches slowly to sleep. Granma slow motion slouches too, after correctly guessing the Scooby

Yesterday’s brain, under surface calm assertions, sounded like this: ‘Oh. The twenty-sixth day of May? We could be moving house in four days. Four days, or five? Five years since I started stripping the bedroom wallpaper, but we never had the money for paint. While Boy is doing his exams? We have no boxes. Will the big cheque clear in time? To give notice requires 30 days. Where did I leave my coffee? Stop eating sheep poo, Fat Beagle!’ Farmer Landlord phones that evening: ‘That’s fine dear, you sort yourself out. Take your time over it- that’s fine, yes, no, don’t pay us any more rent, that’s fine. Longer someone stays in the property, the better for us, if you see what I mean.’ Quick words construct sentences. Regret in every pause. Apologetic kindness. Advantageous sympathy. Assuming, self-assuredly, the sought cottage is rented to us, between there and here, a buffering state is mapped. Out comes the elderflower champagne, it flowers effusively all over the kitchen floor.

Heat follows me into the house. Around the edges of the fields fleece-laden sheep graze shaded grass. Fat Beagle, our houseguest for the week, struggles to clamber up to the cool sofa leather. Dog watches derisively. She curls her lips when he wanders close. She curls up next to him when he whimpers. Not love and hate; comfort and scorn. I make coffee and leave it to cool. I fetch my laptop from the cupboard that is my office. It is an old Mac, bought with a redundancy payout in 2006. I dropped it once, halting the terrible fall with my broken foot: literally, a painful experience. The casing fractured. The plastic splinter is still held in place by a sticker from a Thornton’s chocolate. Thus it became an object both useful and quirky. Stuff I own is on my mind, today. I will not classify it as a painful occurrence, but I do not deny being discomforted. Moving from a sprawling crumble of a house, to a neat cottage, not all of our possessions will fit. I believe that life is more

Lately, it has all been about The House; our real quest for an archetypal place of secure residence. Some balance is required, firstly because too much poignancy will make you sick and secondly because the rest of the world is still there, shuffling uncomfortably while you mutter to yourself. Embarrassment may cause you to refer to yourself in the third person, maybe even the third person plural, Lily Tequila, and all of her aliases, awkwardly note. So, still believing that in the particular lies the universal, I look outside myself and pick this for a subject. It has the essential edge of oddness. Cider Tramp. This is a terrible thing to name a person, obviously, but then so is village idiot. Sometimes the external labelling is socially understandable, if not wholly acceptable. Every village needs an idiot, it could be argued, this idiot being a vital unifying force, a source of comedy, provider of the jester function, the safety valve of social pressure. Towns have cider tramps,