Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Sketch of Mrs White: from 'Why Do We Have To Move.' (Today the pen etches secret prettiness: a wedding commission. Can't divulge yet!) The fire is lit. Piping, strong and pitch-black I drink up coffee: slap mustard and garlic all over my food. I am feeding a cold. I think it's dying. If needed, there are offers of sympathetic soup, to drown it. I am well enough, after yesterday's rest, to go out to work: encased in vest, shirt, over top, leggings, trousers, scarf, ski socks and baseball style boots. To my reflection I say, 'It's a look.' I get a look back, unconvinced, but warm. To my students I say, 'I smell of garlic, mustard and Vick's Vapour Rub. Any of you have difficulty breathing, it's either because of me, or you need to stand next to me, and I'll clear those airways.'

Rain bounces on the lean-to roof. Dog barks. One eye opens. Eventually I realise that it's my eye. Watch the tall fronded trees sigh in pale grey daylight. Tea is fetched to my bedside. Hours, somewhere, are ticking by. I can't hear them. I sleep. Hunger puts my feet on the stairs. Feed a cold, that's the old wisdom. Starve a fever. What does a cold like to eat? Fruit and yoghurt is what it gets. In the post today: my copy of the book I illustrated. Sense of achievement prompts further action. Pour coffee into brain. Write. Stories for papers about our students getting new belt levels- done. One essay required for request to take Second Dan grading- done. One chunk of novel- done. Three ticks earns a rest. Trees wave, eyes drop, dog woofs, rain drums.

A swift time spent outside, today. One chicken must be flurried from under the car, before the short drive to school. Boy takes his folder of photographs, goes to wave the usual laconic 'bye: one odd insect nestled in the passenger window frowns at the cold air, interrupts. We peer at it. It has that waiting to leap feel about it, as crickets do: is a bland khaki colour; sits still as a carving, big eyes boggle either side of its big head. 'It's going to be one be of those days,' I say. I forgot the banks open late, so after placing my car at a vaguely parked angle; the insect staring balefully after me; around the tiny cold town I walk. Too cold. Hot coffee will help. One window seat, one Americano. An extravagance, really. Civilised and privileged. I have money: it needs to be paid to the bank when the doors open. When the coffee cup is empty, I walk to the bank. When my purse is emptied, I walk back to the car. The insect is elsewhere. It could be

A fistful of storm in the sky tonight: splinters clouds into pieces. Such an air of drama: slams at my car: an exhilaration, a fright: I am caught up. And there, on the other side of the road, blue lights, flashing. Cars pulled to, hazard lights busy. A glimpse of torchlight, of shone cones in the far ditch. Let the news be good , I am thinking. A bruise and a lesson learnt. (How long now has my crashed friend been in hospital? He is bored, and grumpy, sat brooding over AutoTrader pictures of cars he isn't driving. Sometimes the second chance at life has a long painful labour.) Let the news be good , I repeat, while the wind frets. I tuck my car into the very top of the driveway. Indoors, Dog is sprawling on the sofa; Cat, happy in her basket.

Two types of snowdrops shiver in the slippery breeze: the shy droplets and the belled petals, striped with green. Icy, the breeze slides. Nipped fingers pull the wool of the warm scarf, cosy up fragile flesh. Cold mud, under the tread of the boots, plasticized: tracks that draw the eye to the gate of the field where the old barn squats. To the gate, and pull the squealing bolt and find here, white as winter flora, open sky: wide open sky.

Hedgetrees exude an energy of moving, even frozen in their dance: it goads a passerby to wander further. I've come this far, I could take a stroll in the woods. The top path is shining, licked by rain. All the fallen leaves make soft compost. Trees grip the abrupt edges with roots like dinosaur toes. Where the path is smothered by fallen timbers, there is a new path being worn beneath. Above is rotted limbs and some low badger tracks. I've never trod there, and it's so close. I've come this far. The bracken is black, frost smitten; the prone wood-flesh uncomfortably soft. Only the brambles are green and fresh and drag blood from unwary skin. Where the track runs out is too steep for standing, descent happens as a seated slide. Sometimes the moss here grows bigger than the trees. Three hours pass. Dog and I, mud flecked, drowsy, find the house again. We both seem surprised, to unearth this life outside the woods.

He came in looking pale: he had forgotten his belt: he wouldn't be able to grade without his belt. 'Wait here,' I tell his parents. I walk back into the hall and bow; an observation of courtesy that, at some point, we all perform inadvertently: at a supermarket, a school, a public toilet. 'Excuse me, Mr Paine…' I know. It's a good name. And the right person to ask. Instructor Paine points to a bag of spare belts, and there's the very colour I'm looking for. After a hug of much gratitude, after a courteous bow at the door, I return to the nervous scene, hand over the borrowed item. The drama is quickly resolved and there's nothing unusual about stricken faces just before a grading. I forgot about it. The hall looked brighter than usual, because of the new expensive floor. The new floor didn't have any marks on it to show students where to stand: we set them out in neat rows so our grading examiner can exercise proper scrutiny. T

Mild rain, the sort that barely damps. Muffled by a coat hood, walk the rough path to the woods. Wide pools of floodwater in the low fields, reflecting sky. Lively birds, fresh storm felled branches and an old shoulder bone is what we meet on the path. January is gone, like a bottle on a tide, holding a rolled up list of wishes. Have more fun, I asked of myself, be open to riches, and don't talk about, do it. Little decisions, they add up. Slide back the coat hood, under the trees, listen to the rain, symphonic, in the open-palm reach of the evergreens.

Not one raindrop slips from the sky. Sunshine cartwheels across the afternoon. One of those days where one makes plans but the lines blur: maybe because the sun is in your eyes, or because your neighbour from the end house has lost her handbag.  It wasn't in the back of the taxi; not the coal shed, not the greenhouse. It wasn't put away with the groceries in the cupboard or the fridge. In the bag is cash, bankcard, passport sized family photos: all the rectangle jigsaw pieces to connect up modern life. It is just reaching that point where the possibility of a handbag dematerialising is a consideration. Maybe, from the corner of the windowsill, behind the edge of the curtain, the bag is actually sniggering at this trick. 'I never leave it there,' my dear neighbour shakes her head, opens her arms. We hug each other, having shared kindness and relief. 'I'm always so careful with my bag!' She shakes her head again and laughs. 'Well, I can't s

The pink flask has seen prettier days. Sun through car windows bleaches out metallic finish. It is pink-ish, matt, mostly looks like a Caucasian prosthetic, but still we are fond of it. It keeps the coffee in warm proximity, here in the car café. The cup twists off. Silver shines under the pink, patched, a map: silver lands in a pink ocean. Espresso is the magma of my little cup planet. Rain distends the river again, overspills, over fields: the fat streams flow. Even the moon is swollen. We see the lower curve of it on the last stretch home. The flask in its former incarnation, bringing 9-5 coffee access

Thoughts on: how to be comfortable and not get stale. Which is not yet a problem: I'm actively pre empting. Like everything, it bubbles in the pot, sputters down to attitude. I am rich. I have always been rich, in experience, in appreciation. Actual material wealth seems tacky by comparison. Just enough to get by keeps you sparkling. Think: what can getting by include? A house, some land, a campervan? What I would say to someone else: Yes. Because it all fits in the pot of thoughts and it sputters just the same. What I remind myself: Yes. Because you hold a link between want and invention and yet once you held a cigarette that gave you powers of calm, remember, and when the very last one was stubbed out, idiot, the calm was stood just as quiet and lovely. If you are good inside you are good in any tax bracket. Will it hurt anyone if I rake up a heap of gold? No. Because it all fits in the pot of thoughts.

Up the flue the brush is pushed. Matt black soot absorbs light: only in specks, for light is not easily consumed. Lit, the fire hacks thick smoke. The soot still bothers it, still catches in the throat of the house. Outside, gluts of rain slick the roads, bog the fields. A brash wind bullies tall trees. -How else to dry the washed clothes? Lit, the fire stays.

As I type, a queen wasp is circling inside the light shade. White washing dangles damp from the clotheshorses: it has been fetched in from flails of chill wind and waning flares of sun. Indoors, it has been warm enough to wake a high-ranking wasp. The fire is not even lit, because the flue is choked with wood ash. We resorted to electric heat to keep Little Granddaughter cozied up this morning. She runs around the living room, condensing meaning into strings of single words. Doggle : meaning this in some way relates to Dog. Mow : meaning this in some way relates to Cat. Nam-ma : meaning Granma there is a job for you to do here. Down : abandon the coffee cup, there is important other stuff to do. Yeh-plea : what children have to say to be obeyed. I hand her toast in a plastic bowl. She looks at me, says phonetically: 'Szis breakfast?' 'Yes.' A satisfied nod: the expected answer. There was no dialogue to be had with the wasp.

This morning, a chicken stole into our house via the broken cat flap. I cornered it in the bathroom and carried it back outside. I think that Cat had ripped off the duct tape but not that she had expected the appearance of the chicken. Cat and Dog both sat in the kitchen with saucer eyes, aghast at the interloping. Cold and bright, the day pops up, takes me to the beach. Two horses gallop about; as many dogs as people; seabirds and crows steady in a bracing onshore blast; no chickens. Dog follows her tennis ball through waves and pools and the toothsome castellations of rock. My eyes follow Dog: over a row of molars and juts of incisor and around the chunky buttress. Press my feet over soft sand. The beach graduates from fine particles to rockfall slabs. Small white pebbles: the teeth of the drowned: salt polished, scatter evenly throughout.

False Start Friday: in which writers share some words that didn't make the final cut, or were in some way unwanted. Here's a failed competition entry of mine from last autumn: a tell-a-story-in-100-words challenge. It wasn't a terrible fail: Boy liked it; it's always good to practice one's skills. It isn't a whole story, it's more of an extract. It has a monster from the abyss theme that relates to the prehistoric and thus the deepest unconscious regions of the human mind, but how would the reader know that? Go too deep and you compress too much! It is exactly 100 words, of course J Hunts By Eye 'At first it is a space, darker than the deep water, indistinct under thick ice: the distance makes us brave. As the shape gains clarity, we grow chill, like the ice melt runs straight into our veins, but there’s a level of curiosity that breaches reason. The pale glaze melts thinner and thinner, a stir in the still water breaks co

Starlings pour from a tree, noisy as a waterfall. As I walk I heat up: flinching eyes in the brightness of sun. Here by the old barn, something blooms red in the ivy: a robin, not a flower. It blooms and flies from the open field, into the wide calm sky. We amble on, over the gate, over the grassy bumps of lane. In the shadowed woods there is old bones and there is fresh; splayed with wing feathers, a blooded fan. Cold holds on the low path. As I climb I heat up: clumsy as a troll in the bracken and sticks. Look at these caves and holes and kicked down trees: badgers here are big as people.

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.