Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

This day, 1973: In the patterned house of things both lime and purple, in the polyester breeze wafted by maxi skirts and the turbulence of corduroy flares, in the shade of my father's sideburns, there grew a bump in my mother's tummy, quite unmarked by myself. At three one notes the joyful melt of summer chocolate, the enticing mew of wild cats at the end of the garden, the difference between sand crunch and sea splash: one does not note the changing shape of one's maternal parent. Parents are considered a stable entity. It was quite dark when my father and his shady sideburns shook my shoulder to wake me up. It was therefore either wrong or of great import. He whispered, which was pointless. A whisper is something done when you don't want to wake a person. He whispers: 'You have a little brother. Come and look.' What? But his tone was reverent, it told of a significant event. I put my feet on the macramé carpet and pulled on my lime and purple dr

It is after the rain bearing clouds have blown by: after I hang the washing out and the white shower curtain reflects the sun to make me squint: I am indoors, running upstairs: I don't know why, I always run upstairs: I am looking for a thing, a coffee cup usually, and that is the point of first startlement. A house sized shadow flies across the horses' field. I feel the noise. Boy jumps out of his room. 'Two propellers,' he says, peering through windows for sign of the beast in flight. 'There it is.' He points. It is low and heavy: a cargo of something leaden. The shock of the shadow replays. The warmth settles and there is no need to be indoors. I have coffee and paper and a working pen and sit at the pallet table writing serious notes when a second startlement occurs: smaller, with grey tone wing feathers splayed to slow its course: a predatory bird scouts the hedge, light and low, then curves a path into the greenery of the ash tree.

The world looks like one of those panoramic pictures, letterbox shaped: viewed through a visor. Yawns burble up, are caught in an inconvenienced palm, pushed away. All the house is busy or crowded, all the garden sodden. A pitch is set in the polytunnel where the air is warmed to torpidity. Seedlings stand upright in a row, an earwig scouts the book pile, a fly makes a journey. The rest of us wilt. I see how the ash trees in the hedge have slender reaching branches, good for whirring in a fast breeze: hear that soft rustle, that low song: follow it into a dream, head on a pillow of folded arms.

'Cuddle.' Little Granddaughter lifts up her arms. Her face has a glow of high temperature. All her energy seems burnt out. 'Beep beep.' She squashes Nam-ma's nose and giggles. After her nose is beeped by return she rests her head on Nam-ma's shoulder, watches waves swoosh, the shenanigans of Dog, the cluster fuss of gulls. 'We go back now,' a tired thing sighs. 'Go back Nam-ma's car, now.' 'Shall we just look around this rock?' 'Okay.' 'Oh, s'pretty shell!' She points at a whirl-patterned pebble. 'That's a stone.' 'Oh. S'tone. S'rock?' 'Yes, a small rock.' 'Uh huh.' She nods as though, in her opinion, the question is answered correctly. Wide spaced raindrops are blown from the warm grey sky. She pulls up her coat hood. 'Not 'gain.' A head shakes, is placed gently back to the shoulder. 'Back Nam-ma's car?' A muff

Two moments from the Kids' Camp weekend, interspersed with a memory: I often wonder what odd things will stick in these children's minds. One can hope it's a tradition of magnificent story telling and wise counsel, one can hope it's the excited discovery of achievements: the first time they step out on the zip wire, the first stay away from home… but it might be a dead or deadly insect. *** I was sorry that we drowned the wasp. There were plenty that didn't slip into the simple trap. It helped to keep a sense of calm, I suppose, to know there was a way to halt their stinging sprees. Some of the children were allergic. The drowned wasp did not scare them. They could observe the shape, the infamous stripes, the articulated legs, those mournful eyes, the tiny slack mandibles. Boy shrugs. He has tried the old trick of luring them off with a picnic lunch of their own: an apple split and left open in the hedge-line. Evident from the creature that lands

Morning sun in ermine mist, certain of ascendance, watches me peg the washing: the irregular bunting. By noon we are prostrate. No other body could centre this universe. The sky is courtly blue; clouds move as respectful whispers. Later, I see, behind concretized blocks, the simple circle blurred with intricate fire: the colour that belittles gold. At the traffic lights, where the roads are widest and their convergence sweeps obstructions: there the settled sun watches us retreat.

The object of today's wonderings is not an object. She is a baby of seven pounds and fifteen ounces: by the time of writing this, about five hours in age. While I am wondering I am wandering: around the lanes, before breakfast, where I see the harvest has begun in one wheat field, but not finished, the rain has seen to that. Green berries are gaining blush and size. Dog follows badger scent sagas. Some bits grip so deep her tail freezes. In the afternoon my car is delegated transport for children to reach the beach. Boy loads the surfboards, hmms at clouds. Dog is relegated to the boot space, next to the bodyboard, to make room for Boy and friends. At Widemouth South the shallows are warm and lively with the foam of little waves. Between the lifeguards' flags the sea teems with impossible numbers. A fan of empty sand, I find this blast of close quarters humanity endearingly cheery. If Dog and I play over by the rocks, it is only so I can throw her ball without cl