Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Note: tent in background still looks lively. Cat sits on an upstairs windowsill, watching the storm pounce. It may catch a bird or two for her. The birds are erratic, jerking like unpractised stunt kites. Cone headed Dog is caught in a cross wind, I hold her lead tight but she stays ground based. Trees grow a voice from the storm, from a whisper to a full dragon's roar. In the garden the big tent jelly wobbles, holds fast, is assassinated by a flying plank. Vexing. On the road to Bude stretches of glossy black water sidle over the tarmac. They look sticky and steal all traction. Note: tent, much smaller now

Cone headed Dog is on a restricted walking programme. She is on the leash and off the grass, while her belly hosts a row of Frankenweenie stitches. These are not her favourite circumstances, but we take a walk up through Lawhitton which is different and smells different and thus adds interest to the restricted day. We meet a gentleman who extols the virtues of a stiff walk, who tells us that the water has dropped from the moors and the river has come out. Old language converges with new meaning: I picture a river full of gaily proud spangled bikinis, but on looking, the brown fields of flood water lie flat. Most of the day I make tiny marks with my drawing pens, bringing depth to cute pictures. My shoulder aches and a bath, a hot bath is what I want. When I get to it though, it's run out of heat. Warm enough to wash. Meanwhile, I think of things that people like to write in lists, desirous things to do in a lifetime. If you get to the top of the mountain (literal or m

I can scarcely suspend my disbelief: yet again I have not scooped the lottery prize. Ah well, at least this is something to write of that many people can relate to. If there were no disappointment at all there would be no point in buying a ticket. Disappointment often travels in wave form; this one is a mild ankle tugger. It washes away and I still value the shore I stand on. It's a flat silver skied day and I'm working to clink up some coin in the patched up home purse; illustrating a children's story. Doesn't sound like hard work, does it? I work hard all the same: hard here meaning meticulous, unceasing, until my muscles seize up in knots. The easy part of it is creative satisfaction. A lottery win won't buy me anything more of that, but I would buy a mig welder and expand into metal work. If there were an aptitude test for wealth I think my fortunes would greatly improve. 

Twice it seemed that a car approached; the third time I knew but looked anyway; it was the storm wind shouldering tree branches. Wind pressed the rain deep into my coat, hunted through the harsh cut hedges to find anything shakable. Colours of the autumn kept me warm. In the patch of strawberry leaves, some flowers struggle. One ripe fruit waits for me; pops a last sweet summer taste. At home, carpets are swept, floor tiles mopped, cloths sweep surfaces, mats struck on the house wall release dust into rain and the rain binds it to the driveway and the history of our footprints is held with it. All day the fire is lit. 

Yesterday I wrote only shorthand questions, ticks, half marks and crosses- the accepted system for recording knowledge of theory from the students hoping to progress up a belt level. One new Black Belt sat at each side of me, being instructed and gently overseen in the art of questioning. I often land in charge of the theory table, having a sense for when nerves are dispersing diligent study. My two apprentices caught on to the empathy angle in a heartening way. Let's not get this wrong: we do learn to punch and kick, we do fight, blood gets spilt now and then, bones broken, eyes blacked. But social and emotional intelligence are nurtured and valued. The bonds we build, through training, competing and facing the grading process, spread out over lifetimes. A baby comes to the grading on Mum's lap, she cheers her fellow students on. A big sister holds a Black Belt certificate up to show her little yellow-belted brother. Teenagers in smart blazers pose for photographs. I

This may or may not be a false start; it might be the start of a second novel.. In a rush of a day, so slinging this up without thinking about it- will be round to visit fellow false starters sooner or possibly later this weekend. Or Monday. Busy weekend!  Charleigh, aged six, looks in the mirror; she's standing on the double bed in the room she shares with two of her sisters; and this is what she can see:- The mirror; a circle of glass in a yellow plastic frame. The wallpaper; a fat field of sunflowers growing in swirls of brown. Herself; only just visible, hidden in between the representations of field and flower like a fledgling pushed out of the nest. If she concentrates, she can just about trace her skinny framed outline trapped in the rows of yellow blob flowers, just about see, with her chinky blue eyes, that her straight, pale brown hair is still too thin to cover her sticky out ears.   Damn, she thinks (but dare not say aloud).   Her mother has been

Boy gets in the car, chuckling. He has been passing the time waiting for us to fly past between jobs and snatch him from the designated meeting spot. Mr puts his foot down exactly like a kidnapper so we have time to eat lukewarm fish pie. Boy recounts the failed attempt of fellow students to embarrass him in the underwear aisles of New Look. 'Hey, Boy: pink bra or red bra, what do you think?' Shrug. 'What will you be wearing it with?' Boy has me for a mother. Skinny-dipping, clown-suit-wearing, former smoker of enormous cigars, you get the picture. There was the time that Mr won the Walking In Heels competition: it isn't just me. Slowly, Boy has been inoculated against embarrassment. I should footnote that while bonkers is a suiting word, we also do practical stuff like work for a living and nag about homework and steam healthy greens. One strives for a balance, even with such idiosyncratic scales.  I know you all, and will awhile uphold Th