Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

The densest substance in the universe, briefly, is made of eyelids. I have no hope to prop them up. Hope abounds everywhere but in these lids. They shut as velvet curtains do at the old style cinema, to reopen on a lit screen where pictures move, lifelike, with a flickering light. Everyone is smiling. It's a replay, not quite reality. I hear the cool leather creak, the tractor chug: know I am lying on my sofa by an open window: know I am dreaming. Out takes of the day thus far: Boy in his crisp white shirt, leaving his acceptance letter on the car seat: I am asking; so, what questions did they ask you ; release from pre-interview nerves unfetters hunger; we think about the view from the top of the big wheel, but the view from the café is fine and there we sit to celebrate with baguettes and beverages. Sun blares. The car park time is generous. We walk and say how things look.

It is my first foray into the newly cut wheat field. Stalks under sun are briefly gold: Dog runs through filigree, entirely impervious to the grandeurs of colour. She rolls in some olfactory delight, which might be of equal mystery to my understanding, and runs and rolls and her tongue lolls and her tail whizzes. I have missed the musical plink of these stalks under the tread of Wellington boots: zigzag a path just to hear more of it. In the hedge are blackberries, ripe and palatable. Dog eats some grass, the tall wide bladed stuff, dew-dotted. What seems a sentient moment passes between us: this simple recognition: 'Oh look, we're eating.'

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

Visual metaphor for feeling crushed... Everyone has days, I believe, where anxiety is niggling underfoot and close to causing a fall. Perhaps it is because it is not appreciated that the anxiety returns? Maybe it is the sense of all the hostility that lingers in the world, the fragility of all you have? It is the flipside then, of appreciation: the unpleasant side of not taking life for granted. It does not seem fair, that fatheads can live untrammelled. Fingers tap on desk: thought occurs. To have confidence in a thing, is that to take it for granted? I have been without lots of things; the washing machine is a good example. I have one now. It works, and I am grateful every time, for every turn of that drum. I love what I have, have no need of dissatisfaction. Except, I don't love that anxiety. Fingers tap on desk. When the dice are always rolling, the thrill wavers. The lack of security frustrates. I would have a haven, a place for buds to grow un-nipped, for ro

At first the rain was of a mild grayish sort, a good sort to wander a shore under, watching surf roll, the light all low contrast monotone. It's after the car parking is paid for and we are walking the cliff top path to Widemouth South that the Super Rain strikes. Swimming is superfluous by the time we reach the sea. Every thread on our bodies has reached maximum saturation. Nothing to do, but run in the warm sea and laugh. Back to the car park, more of a squelch than a walk. There's a lovely café here. No one has remembered to bring a wallet. There's a small bag of change which is counted out at the take away window: enough for three portions of chips. We peel off wet things, wrap towels, sit in the car with our chip boxes and plastic forks, listen to the buzz of car fan, the slide of wipers, wait for the rain to drain from our eyes, finally get to watch the surf roll: blue and white.

(Don't like heights, but that is me on the big rock.) There's not an inconsequential cloud here. They are things of marvellous substance. Sunlight blares between. Such loud weather. It calls us to the moors, to seek a good walk and a vantage point. Once I saw the glow-edge of the Northern Lights: the sky was shaded purple: it quite surprised my eyes. From the top of Feather Tor, in the unnerving tug of wind, the shades of this heaven are not unexpected, yet hold that thrill. After deeds of mild daring and a vanilla cone, we drive slowly home in phenomenal torrents.

Fresh cut hair flares rakishly. Sweet stodge of bread and honey behind a fine smile. Sky full of giant cloud poodles. No rain, only heat falls. Physics says hot air rises, of course, but I am sure it is hotter lying here than it would be riding on one of those broad backed clouds. All the fire exits are open for evening air. Boy and I are in the third hour of hall space rented from the Okehampton Table Tennis Club. I have opened my coffee flask while he commands the warm-up and I say to the parents assembled: 'It's lovely, having an assistant.' Under rain, the hall roof is a drum skin. Lights dim and flick. Under thunder we must mime: this kick, this block: to a line of faces: avid, awed, timid. The hall roof is played like timpani. I have always loved a storm and shut the doors reluctantly. I am glad to hear the bellow of it. Feels a long time in the making, comes with such clearance. 'Are we safe?' Asks Harry, in the lull. &

The eighth month begins bright. The forecast is a line of cloud, the doom-laden rain-spilling sort. One sullen puff emits lightening forks. I tell Boy he is banned from the planned room clean and must be outside instead. Carpe diem is a phrase birthed for a temperate zone. One does not need the forecast to be correct. It stands as excuse and impetus. Lovely washing on the bobbing line: all my paper weighed down on the pallet table (my eraser is stolen by a wind, but found again caught in a grass clump under the rusty garden chair.) I hear chicken cacophony next door: they have broken free and are drinking from the paddling pool. I don't know that they were responsible for pushing the folding chair into the water, nor do I know that they weren't.

Warm wind strolls down the wide city street, carelessly spilling scent: damp water fountain, frying onions, spice, some eye stinging thing that might be called perfume, a simmer of old bin, traffic fumes, baking bread, coffee steam, syrup. Beyond the dust and smell of streets a series of double doors admit the public to the steel and glass sky high wonder with the smooth floors, where shops line up indoors, where the street odours must sneak at the edge of the coolly conditioned air. A grey clad force with bright armbands and earpieces keep a presence. Nobody runs up the down escalator: but this is a calm time of day. Maybe in the afternoon when caution and tempers are thinner there will be drama. Past the bag selection in Primark two friends are walking, leaning confidentially close. 'I can't stop thinking about him.' ' Aww .' 'His girlfriend -' That's all that was overheard: one snippet of a story that seems plain enough. Yep, drama

There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words

The rain comes from that fabulous sky, from those broad beamed cloud-stacks; raindrops like pouts, cover the sighing earth in wet prints. Bordering on stormy, we note, and retrieve the garden chairs from a short wind powered journey. The waves may be lively… why, it's been a whole day since last we were on a beach. A plan is not quite made, it only unfolds. Espresso pot babbles: we can't find the lid for the pink flask. The silver thermos will do. Who needs a table when there's a flat rock waiting?

Sleep itself seemed a hot blanket, to be shrugged aside: a sluggish gesture, not quite successful. Half awake and able to hear a glass of water calling, a cool clear note of antithesis. Irresistible is forgotten, though: the stairwell window, undressed, shows the world as though swallowed, lost in the belly of a ghost. -Oh yes, a glass of water. For a few hours, the heat spell is broken. Settle under a better sleep .

Grandad sleeps on the sofa. It's a nest in a mess of happy neglect. Little Granddaughter has succumbed on the sun lounger, under a rag-rug blanket, in wet clothes, holding a favoured toy. Dog drinks the paddling pool water, returns to loll in shade, leaves Granma to keep watch. Other than the heat, all foes are feasibly sleeping also, but Granma has a large coffee, just in case: it makes her invincible. Granma is coconut scented and may look paint spattered: a side effect of Little Granddaughter's thorough approach to sun screen.

The lane hedges are smartly cut: they have a sour-fresh smell. On our walk, the reprieve of cool wind is brief. Heat sticks. Cloud builds. Stand a while by the cut-open house because such a place reeks of fascination. See the rose print curtains; drawn open for a morning that lingers in their poignant witness; and the bared stairs where feet changed direction when they did remember what they were going to do after all. Why is memory so easily lost and found in a stairwell? Footings for more space are dug: those old memories will tumble down, be mixed in. Even when the specifics are gone, the vestiges of history hold; lightly haunt. The field is a wider space, where we can open our arms to catch spouts of wind. The crumbled barn has no doors but its spaces are like eyes: you can look through them, view the world as the barn views it. This evening rain comes. Tepid drops on warm tarmac; they make a low mist, they sparkle in headlights. Imagine tho