Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

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

Last night: Sat at the picnic table in the front room. The décor is indoor camping chic. Two uncurtained windows sit opposite, brim full of twilight. They are such well appointed windows they bring on a Jane Austen fit. We do not rent, we take country lodgings. Bemused Dog scatters bits of defeated cardboard box. Track the long extension lead to the kitchen, pull out the flex from behind the portable gas stove, the plastic plates and the sporks. Link up the stereo, here is my drawer of old vinyl. Nina Simone’s voice, pressed into plastic grooves, shaken out from the usefully shelfed alcove at the side of the fireplace, dances artfully over stuff we brought and haven’t found places for yet. Neither the old house nor the new looks convincingly inhabited. We could be going in either direction, at this point. We are delighted to discover a bag of peanuts just as snackishness descends. Also, apple wine. This morning: The bathroom’s brand new shower rail, curtain, rings, fresh from t

I can hear my neighbours. I can hear radio tunes and a harmony of conversation. This morning one car has driven past, two tractors trundle between yard and field. Most amusing so far is the singing toilet: the cistern celebrates each refilling with a low twisting refrain. It has some kind of pipe hernia. Loudest are the birds. Multitudinous notes reverberate, make an outdoor opera of nesting rites. Silent in the blue sky vast clouds bask. Four horses at pasture blow through their noses, make Jurassic Park noises. A branch on the fat trunked ash plucks at our telephone wire. The house at Lawhitton bounces with these pleasant sounds. Lamentations for the old place are eased. We start to speak of the new dwelling now not by village name but by its name, Number Three.  

Arrive at the pending home before the new landlord; also a farmer, but the orderly kind that has time to tidy his hedges. It is pleasant to sit before the furniture lugging begins. Boy’s bed lies over the flattened seats in a heap of slats. Boy himself is somewhere between Rosehill and a shop, on his bicycle and a mission to obtain a bacon sandwich. Girl is travelling with Mr and a bootful of book boxes. I will hear her laughing as soon as she opens the car door. She has always loved moving furniture. It will be Girl that steers the puzzlesome chunk of our bed base down the tiny staircase. A double act of Girl and Boy hinders and helps: I will think of the time they rolled across the airport at Larnaca, engaged in a spontaneous stage fight. In this moment, though, sat alone in my car, I hear only the soft drops of rain, set my eyes on the mottling of sky, kempt lines of fields, the fat trunked ash tree. Later; several carloads later, back at the old house, when Girl has gone to col

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

(Insert drum roll of suspense here.) It may be three weeks before the internet follows us to the new address. According to the cheerful conviction of a call centre lady, we can maintain a phone line at the old address. Until the end of July we will have access to both houses: we can keep an office at Rosehill, and homely quarters at Lawhitton*. Feasibly leading to delusions of landowning grandeur, and some classic misunderstandings of who is where and why.  Rich in comedy is the practiced silver lining detector. Not so mired in positivism that I can’t admit life can be awkward, however. There is still a potential for absence, in the often incommunicative communications infrastructure, it may be that an absentminded data entry gets the Rosehill phone snipped off. I may appear to have disappeared from the blogosphere but, dear readers, do not fear. A technical hiccup, merely. A picture of affectionate tolerance   I am sat on the sofa, writing this, next to Boy, who is listening

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