Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Our washing machine busies itself; zips and buttons catch the inverted dome of glass door, add chinks of percussion to the comforting rumble. The sky lies low, hot, heavy with cloud: one imagines it panting, a grey dog. I wonder if a storm is due, but the birds are not silent. They chirrup shrill from branches and guttering pipes. The rain has stopped. The house is cluttered, though clean. Thoughts light on the next bout of clearing in our small space. We have a dream, we work towards it. Meanwhile, one admires the absence of dust. It is still not raining as the washing cycle spins out. Washing on the line is blue and white, beach hut colours.

This happened yesterday, but I'd already written a post, so I saved it for today. It's raining today, so even luckier that yesterday had an adventure in it. The old wood path is disappearing. Brambles gain impressive ground and girth. The ferns are most prolific and big enough to eat me up. Smugly, all my skin is covered. Once or twice I must stop to get my ankles back, but I walk the path bold enough. Bluebells in ebb; foxgloves and campions surge. There's a clover flood in progress. I never had much patience for searching out the four-leaved lucky stem. 'I don't need your fourth leaf,' I say, 'just a bit of fourth leaf luck please!' All through the woods, past the troll caves, the trees all mossed, down through the leaf mulch, me and Dog: at ease. At the path junction, a decision: we will go to the river before striking homeward. At the river, meet the retired farmer and his retired farm dog, and they are on their way back from a

Yesterday's morning: the hedgerow grasses rubbed like dry lips. Clouds wrung out drops. In the afternoon, wet-dabbed flora shivered. A choppy sun was there, sudden and warm. All day the wind howls. A half load of washing takes every peg.

It came good, the weather, by the afternoon.  A thick weight of sun arrives, lies on willing shoulders; glints and heats and drapes like chain mail. In the wood shade it is cooler and dangerous. In search of skin are the bites of sharp insects: thorns, faery tale thick; nettles, the height of men, bristling with stings. The bluebells are in retreat. Campions pattern in their stead: pink petal polka dotted in the deep green. Hedges have edges of meadowsweet frill. Dragonflies are dark sparks over the bright river. Every step is worth the peril.

Bullock heads stoop in the field, take breakfast on a slope. Rolls of bumped fields, crumpled in places like coverlets: at any moment the incumbent could throw them off and rise. Crow holds his branch tight with piercing claws: feathers blown, eyes sharp. No ancient gargantuan stirs today. Only leaves that catch the wind and curl branches into dervish shapes; only crow on the wing, only strolling cattle. Tarmac lanes are wet grey, reflective of the sky. Towards the town the wider roads fill; the inch and spill of morning traffic, pent concerns of the late, sleepy grumble, a glint of excitement; for the most part, stiff and slow.

http://www.masksoftheworld.com/Orient/Korea%20Mask%20White%203.htm  image found on pinterest which I am LOVING even if my brain does explode... While the sky is busy with rain and cloud and an unsummery breeze, windows and doors are pulled shut, indoor things are done by people. I assume Mr is doing work, though he may just be walking up and down stairs and turning his laptop on and off as part of some ritual. As it also involves bacon sandwiches there is no need to interfere. What I am doing is work though it confuses me by throwing visually pleasing, interesting, provoking and fun into the mix. And there's bacon: is this recipe correct? Research progresses through classic patterns of order and chaos, expansion and contraction. From flat stated facts, figures, folk art, the cold glaze of a pot, the captured life of a photograph, knowledge makes connections with imagination, with experience. One stuffs one's head and allows to ferment. [ 'The sp

Frequent thick clouds puff out the sun. The wind is brisk. But I am wearing a cardigan, being accustomed to a temperate climate. With a duvet and a rag rug, the old couch substitute is a passable sun bed. Down the lawn, daisy heads shake, as though I have just told them a very funny anecdote. Dark washing on the line billows: vampiric, cloak-like. Columbine florets in ballerina whirls. 'There is little in this world that stays still,' the wind says. The house door is open and it sweeps in, looking for things to blow through. My belly is full of good lunch. My eyes are full of wonder. Sometimes when I was thus occupied, as a daydreaming child, my father would be saying something and, vaguely aware of words, I would turn to look at him. 'In one ear and out the other,' he said, often amused, often annoyed. So I tilt my head now and let the wind blow, in through one ear, and out the other.