Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

(This is an old picture, and an optimistic approximation of what I look like whilst beach training.) July 26th Update: Baby brings her new paddling pool over, to demonstrate a slapstick series of splashy falls. Indoors, under the stairs, the tent is found. Also, in other scattered places, further camping sundries. And a spare tent, utilised instantly as a spare room for amassing all located camping sundries, so as not to unlocate them in the house of boxes. Five days worth of washing is squashed into drawers. Boxes are pushed into cupboards, squeezed under the makeshift sofa. I write a daunting list of things to do and pour a glass of whisky. Aged 12 years, it says on the label. Probably have, I say back, hence the need for a strong swig. Friday: Starts with a run. The day has a running pace. One precious hour spent, sprawled in the garden, reading Asimov. Then, preparation for a week under canvas, a week of twice a day Tae Kwon Do training. The weather looks set to break.

Wednesday: A heat mist over the fields this morning calls up a favourite description from the diaries of Admiral Yi Sun Sin: the earth as a scalding pot of soup. On this steaming day, sweeping and cleaning and the last of the indoor clearing is done. We are prepared to hand over the keys of Rosehill, our former abode. I write ‘prepared’ as old Farmer Landlord is unlikely to be where he says when he says. And the moving saga isn’t over until the fruit bushes are brought to the long garden space at Number Three. And the telegraph pole. My car holds gallons, gallons and more gallons of wine in many shapes of flagon, and a chainsaw, and a galvanised bin. Carefully driven around corners. Reversed clumsily from heat of driveway to shade of shed. No one wants to work, we are too busy melting. Mr drives the hot road to Plymouth. I flop in the passenger seat, hypnotised by the half popped bubble of moon. As the road cools, the moon thickens. On the home stretch, I see clearly

Sunday : Stumped by the internet, a repetition of which we are quite bored. Metaphorically, head meets wall. Head meets wall again. Head aches. Wall remains incommunicative. Sunshine bakes our wearied faces as we shift more loads to the tip. Each fling and release of bin sack, broken box, bit of unmendable thing into the regrettable landfill, each ditch of a reusable item to the recyclable container, takes some stress with it. On the home journey, wind the car windows down, watch Dog’s ears cavort in the air current. At home, eat pudding outside. Home-grown raspberries. Fat trunked ash tree reaches into the blue. Sparrows fetch their fledglings supper. Monday: The internet we do not speak of. The heat is mentioned. The car is loaded, unloaded, grime builds an underlayer, a slime between skin and cotton, it smells like earthy hard work. These are the last days of toil; this is mentioned. Tuesday: Charging up for a sprint finish. When I was a child we seemed to move house

Thursday: A short trip to the tip before the welcome diversion of work. Friday: Long trips to the tip, scooping out a clear floor in Girl’s garage. Long trips to fill it up again with items to puzzle over later. Mostly glass jars for brewing. Long does not denote distance here but effort. My fingers are porcupined with flakes of rusted metal. Saturday: Discover that the sofa will dent the ceiling of the entrance hallway but not fit into the house. Sofa is sent to the holding pen of Girl’s garage. Returning to Number Three I forget to put the latch on. Mr shuts the front and only door. Mr climbs in through the window to let us back in again. We have hired, used, returned the nifty van. My objective for the day’s end was to be sat on our sofa: I had not envisioned sitting in a garage looking at all the other stuff that doesn’t fit. Sorry says Mr, for his measuring had proven fallible. We both sigh. At the old house, trundling dusty things into collecting points- here for t

A little bit of sharing; this project has been going on in the background for a while. About time I cracked on with it! Fairly happy with it up to verse 462, only another 538 to go.  One Thousand Miracles In One Day (The first ten verses, first edit.)     Down the wall a spider walks Unseen, the whisper of eight feet Unheard on the wallpaper, this is A secret world, a spider’s world     At the zero hour it seems nothing exists But the deep breathing of sleep And the heaving of wind in darkness Bowing trees as though dragons fly here Uncounted leaves stream, pulling On thin stems, twisting loose, one leaf Takes hold of the air, it has no plans For landing, that will just happen Droplets absorb night, outside Dark rain falls, clouds Thicken sky, at the deepest Point of our dreaming sleep Too far above to permeate sleep An aeroplane passes, full of journeys Full of stories we will not hear, the travellers Look down at pat

Monday: I can’t remember what happens on Monday; by Tuesday it has gone. I’m not sure how that happened. Evidence suggests overseeing the migration of cardboard boxes. Tuesday: A knock on the door is my neighbour, excitedly gesticulating, asking if we are missing a ferret. I think about it. No, we don’t have a ferret. Cat has learnt to use the cat flap, Dog compulsively flushes birds out of crop fields, Rabbit likes to sit in the under space of his hutch and watch the green lawn world. There is not a ferret missing from this scene. Later in the day, as I am waiting in the road while a breakdown flatbed winches a silver car to the curb, my neighbour passes. They took the ferret to the vet, I learn. It’s a baby. I update Mr on the story and he trumps me by suspecting a cuckoo, having found a fledgling dead upon the ground under the sparrow nest. Wednesday: Been working, while estranged from the www. All this house moving malarkey also interrupts my access to concentrat

Thursday : After so much rain, the clouds lay flat out, from corner to corner of a washed out sky. Tyres in swathes of water spray out wings either side of every car. We travel, a line of neckless swans, on the dark wet road, wondering where the summer is hiding. Everyone sighs. Back at the old house, clothes flopping in the tumble dryer, I heat a kettle on a blue gas flame till it whistles. Make hot chocolate, a mugful. Friday : I am trying to set the router up. At this point I a person who does not care about weather, or chocolate. Boy is brave enough to help. Mr says he loves me. I say I will love everyone when the internet works. The instructions for accessing the connection are on an email. Which I can’t access. It is time to walk away from all things electrical, taking deep breaths. It’s only another little tribulation, on a sense of scale distorted by frustration. Baby gleams, playing hide and seek under a duvet. She wears a toilet roll inner tube as a bracelet.