Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Tiny spitballs of ice hit down from a bland winter sky. News comes along the relay line: crashed out friend in the hospital bed continues to improve. Not the most comfortable progress: he tries to pull out the drip feed, the instinct of fight and flight being much deeper than common sense. The outcome could have been more funereal. Instead, here is a kind of hibernation. Sleeping though the bleakest hours; waking, slowly, numbed; senses clearing, drop by drop. If you were ever going to revaluate your life, then here is the moment for it, the perfect bruised and bashed up moment. Are you thinking about it? I rub my fingertips where the blood-flow has slowed. 

Little Grandson studies a cup cake. Our crashed out friend in the hospital bed will be kept under sedation for 72 hours. Prognosis suggests that shortly after that we can queue up to be joyfully annoyed with him for the superfluous drama. Fingers are crossed, candles lit. Fingers tap on a table top. Thumbs twizzle. Concentration, hmmm….something I put down and can't relocate. I had already made soup, so cake was next. My Christmas culinary distraction cake. It was neither precisely measured nor expertly made. The act of slopping butter with sugar, the paring of peel, squeezing fresh citrus juice, dropping dried fruit over the washing up rack, the awkwardness with which I cut the baking paper and had to peg the sides in place to get the mixture in, the boozy soaked fruity mix that part way through baking acquired a thin layer of charred skin; the way I had to really think about the timings because I was tired and not concentrating? It passed the time productively...

Last night the Christmas lights of Cadgwith were switched on. It was a clear cold night and the switch needed throwing twice to shake the power through the homely strung decorations. Neon dolphins swung over the sea, there was a whale hitched to the miniature peninsular known locally as the Todden. Above the colourful whale is a plain lit cross, for the memory of those lost at sea. Everyone had a fair try at singing. Santa was sat in a makeshift grotto; we sat outside the pub watching children brandish their treats. Back to our home for the night, a fine granite chunk of a cottage, for a large glass of wine, a sauna (splendid what you can find in a cottage sometimes) and a curry feast cooked by our splendid host. For the grand finale, a debate over whether Florentines are a biscuit or a cake, myself being of the opinion 'biscuit.' Word games can last for years with the addition of wine fuelled questioning. Cleared our heads this morning with sea air, another saun...

First day of the last month. Mist from the Tamar valley rises up to a fat cloud: the Buddha of Sky Water. Out of the mist, the sound of gunshot: the cycle of life and death. Sun pierces everything, one last time. After this its reach will weaken. We must hold our own warmth. At the end of my morning shower, turn the dial to a cold setting. From feet to head the nozzle travels and my muscles twitch like river fish and my skin vibrates and my gasps are laughing. Alive and warm. After breakfast, brew coffee, bitter hot and fierce in strength. Awake. 

A further extract from what has already been rescued from my personal slush pile, so strictly speaking it's not a false start BUT it has proved popular so one more glimpse before I get back to making this project work.  *** Mother possessed thin brown hair but her ears didn't stick out.   Her belly did.   After marriage, after babies, after beer drinking, a belly was the end of the production line.   Brown, orange, yellow, swirls and flowers: optional, thank the Bloody Merry Lord, but the life conveyor belt would carry you along. Owning a Strawberry Dress could make you happy but it wouldn't free you from the list that read: School Work Husband Babies Beer Belly The End. Charleigh wonders when her married sisters will have babies. Damn: more babies, and they'll bring them round here for a bloody bath.   They already pop in for cups of tea.   Life should span more than a couple of streets.   If you were lucky you might go ...

Dear World, I am writing to you from a day near the end of November. This morning the moon lit up the sky, and hung around for a while after the sun turned up. Both of them together made the ground frost sparkle, and helped me find where the surface water was frozen still. In the dip by the Small Woods I thought to find thick ice but the tree shelter had huddled it; by the house where the sun hits, I was surprised by the slippery road. First clouds of the morning were silver, and the second batch was pink. By mid morning they were a soft wash of white and the frost held in the shadows. My eyes were full of sun glare and bare trees. Later the cloud fanned out, reminded me of a white peacock I saw once; a snow peacock. Later still, the sky got darkened drop by drop. Did you ever draw a picture in wax crayon then paint over it? The moon was orange wax in the watery dark. We thought of pressing our hands to the sky, to colour palms with night ink. I would make a print and alway...

Unbedded myself in the dark for an early walk with Dog. As I walked, light seeped upwards: it would be amusing if the two events were linked. I could walk backwards into midnight. After breakfast, coffee and driving Boy to school, straight to painting, which forms the main activity of the day. Little pictures, coming to life. Full moon rolls along the horizon like a beautiful lazy eye. Bright planet beside it is a mere pin. Or a very small eye in a heavenly cubist face? A young man in shorts flags down our homeward bound car. He has a car but it has bounced off the hedge, rolled, righted, stopped with immovably busted wheels, equidistant between hedges, neatly blocking the road. 'Sorry,' he says. 'Learning curve,' says Mr. We flag down cars while he phones his parents, until the police arrive with flashy lights and high vis jackets. Big faced moon in a clear sky sees all. At home, via small detour roads, we drink dark hot frothed up mocha.  ...