Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

One minute past midnight I lie in the bath. One glass of hedgerow wine rests quietly at hand; sound of rain beats heavy on the window. The house smells of steam. The density of the steam was such as I had to fumble for the bath and the cold tap: it was the one that didn't pulse painful heat to my fingertips. One minute past midnight: technically, the start of a day. Any sentence requiring the word 'technically' usually involves some form of deception. Heat, wine: remember to leave the bath before sleep: a reluctant but practical remembrance. Upstairs the air is a pinching thing. Bed is safe. Rain flicks the window and dreams I do not later recall are taking place. I think I dream of lying in a hot bath, listening to fat precipitating smacks, watching a wine glass fog. If it were a pleasant dream, it would appear this simple. I think of a cold cottage I lived in once and there was hardly any hot water then, hardly any of anything except coal dust and cobwebs

This morning we woke to find the earth had a new skin. Cold, opaque, so smooth we could not walk on it. It had grown over the cars so we could not move them. It was not as obdurate as thought, and wore thin by mid-afternoon. The cars were wet, unskinned, and could be moved: tentative at first. We coaxed ourselves along the roads, vigilant for lingering shreds. Between tyre and tarmac is a place where friction makes a positive contribution. Later, night brings a white hypnosis; in the headlights, falling, mellifluous, muffled, profuse, resolute.

Toes curl, because the floor is cold. Feet into woollen socks go; socks into welly boots; boots into frozen plains of mud and mottled puddles. Cattle at the gate, curious, outbreaths steaming. Here is mud, ice, cut fat twists of old tree. Chainsaw buzz. Play with foot-shapes: printing in lines: test depths. Feel the breaking point of the crackled flats: smooth to crunch to thick squish. Feel the pull on the boot: leave a crazy paved scene. Sawdust flares, logs drop. Where the glove was ripped and not repaired, cold takes a bite of thumb. Sliced to size, wood chunks pile in the back of the scruffy car. Enough stock for a week. Fingers, cold enough for now.

 And after our post walk defrosting yesterday we went ice-skating: an infrequent event. Rented skates never fit: we are clumsy and make jokes: are proud of ourselves for venturing to fail.  And after we take Ben to the first aid room (an off rink tumble: suspected stress fracture to the right radius) it's time to go home, where there's picture of Ben on Facebook. His arm is in plaster, and he's smiling.  And this morning the warm bed is reluctantly quit. Fill the flask with coffee, fresh brewed. Admire the monochrome of snow on hills. We know the training hall floor will be cold. Shiver in the queue: everyone is cold together. Not everyone has this though: a gifted handmade box of handcrafted chocolates. That's the picture I share to Facebook, today: you can't see me in it: you can guess I'm smiling.  All the thoughtful shares add up. I'm always smiling.

We've been watching the old barn, from the road: the field bullocks jostling inside it, snorting. Dog has no idea that cattle aren't fond of her, so we hadn't climbed the stile before. But now, the curves of sodden earth stand empty, so we cross the edge of the fallow fields, forge the stream, heave up the bank, over the wooden steps, near lose our boots in mud suction. A raw and sizeable badger build draws first attention: all of the hedges are part of this gigantic set. We make sense of all the tracks that lead this way from the minor set-city in the small woods.  We make our own tracks to the old barn and fall in love with it. Mr holds his arms out. A pond, over there : he points: in the natural dip. Drainage would be important. I ask if we can stock it with trout. Room in the barn for a smokehouse. Water tanks, underground, store up irrigation. The pond evolves into a natural swimming pool. South facing, Mr stands, pointing where the sun r

Snow, finally. It arrives on the night wind. News travels by phone before the blinds are lifted. Mere handfuls here, thickens cover towards the town. Not cold enough to keep for long so we leap to the fields, grabbing urgent gloves on the way. Boots stall in the white impediment. Everywhere you look there is a picture. Over there, iced moor hills: where the creatures that can live and die and never be known are free, making unseen tracks. I have thought of them, today: how I think of them: longingly, with envy, as things utterly connected, self-contained, without need of ego or any way to measure time. Little Granddaughter has soon had enough of falling in this crunchy water: holds mittened hands up: a vote to spectate. We are still lost in the novelty of contact. If it doesn't last, it must be precious. No-one needs to know we are here: the joy of life is in the moment, not the record. Tracks follow us back to the car.

Mournful wind song shudders the old aerials.  Solid thud of shotgun sounds from the banks of the swollen river, under a plain sky coloured like thick ice.  Any leaf that has not fallen shivers in the moan of the wind.  Birds' song carries a restless note.  Beauty strikes starkly.  Beyond the river, a faint view of moorlands, where any creature can live and die and never be known.  Bones are weathered, lay stoic in clumps of enduring grass.