Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

More coffee, less sleep! At 3am, realize I have fumbled this advice. Also that I have forgotten several birthdays and not posted that anniversary card. Sometimes I think these words are physical pieces of me and I write more life than I live: they are demon words each dragging a stealthy slice of me and one day there will be only words left. Some thoughts can be cured by sleep. Must unfumble that advice. The wind is a cloud-herd, over fields that have warmed earth smell and curves and busy hedges. Where feet stand is still, vibrantly still. Is my life all inked out? Shhh, says the wind: you should sleep. Where feet stand is thick with flowered cover; the hedge plants run to seed. Words are flowers. Words are seeds. Shhh, says the wind.

After the washing up, the washing (small house, wet weather, no tumble dryer, don't underestimate the skill required) and a basic level of cleaning is covered, it should be writing time, only Boy has sent a plaintive text: please can someone fetch him his photography folder? And while so close to town, I figure, why not drop in the banking and buy some cup hooks and root ginger. And while I'm near-ish there's a sale and I might as well try on some dresses, there's a wedding reception to go to on Saturday: it would be transcendent to go out and be wearing new clothes. The sale is ultra-cheap: the vision viable. This dress and that, I deliberate: mid-lengths, mostly: leopard print; lovely, but not in my size; skinny fit feather motif; looks good full of curves but it won't hold its shape; embroidered nouveau folk; so quirky but so shapeless; and a random dress picked up accidentally in the clutter of the other choices; this is the one that I buy. At home I ha

Winter sends some weather from the future: it's been some months since my hands felt bitten like this. Double-coated Dog cares not a jot. We are in the park admiring the width of old firs, the silvery trunks of birch, the feral pre-schooler in the undergrowth. 'I should have just got a dog,' the mother says. She is holding his raincoat open and smiling. Ice rain puts him off the feral life. He runs for coat cover. We are at the hill's brow when the rainbow breaks. A dinky white terrier stops to wait for a damp man. 'That's the trouble with this weather,' the man says, 'you never know.'

A Sunday blown through with rain, buffetty, quite plain. Consideration is given to finding long trousers but for now we muddle through with shorts and boots. The front door is open and the stove lit, the jam pan scrubbed from yesterday's boiling; that bubbled obsidian and set ruby; four crammed jars wait for labels, another is open, waiting for the halt of the bread maker's ruminations. A greedy glimpse shows azurite, under the kitchen's electric bulb. Washing in the lovely machine tumbles. The fabulous smell of bread. Dog eats up her chicken scraps and upstairs the sneaky rain-damped Cat is sleeping on some folded clothes.

Handfuls of rosehips and some new scratches are found in the field by the river. Formation geese make a fly-by, flanked by rankled pheasants. Blackberries get picked on autopilot now, it's so natural to step and pluck. Skin gets hot under a light coat, under a thick cloud blanket. Nettle stings edge the welly-tops, provoke no reaction. Just down by the river, standing, the truth filters in: watching the water move around the fallen oak: it could be a film set, a fairy tale: it is not. (Not so awake, walking back to the house; the writing desk; the obsessive notes; nor so asleep.) One gets to work and launches in: follow the syllabus: do this kick, add this routine back-fist; perhaps not such a routine job; in the last class a baby rolls in, fast asleep in her pram. 'If she cries, I'll pick her up,' this nice Instructor says. So for part of the lesson the tiny one burps on the Instructor's shoulder while her mother finishes a kicking drill

Water from the showerhead trails, cold and limp. Bracing: one must think of it thus, if hair is to be washed. And besides, it's simply different to do this. Think of odd hotels, the quirks and inconveniences of adventures. Put a hand on the tiled wall, the sleek white squares. Watch the loose pattering of spray, see how the locker room lights shine through the water's twist. Brace, and step under the chill. Cold awake now. If you are this far, push on. Wash hair, wash skin: watch the foam carry the comfortable dirt to a gridded drain.

Alcoves in the hedges hide the blackberries and the picker. Muddles of flora from bud to seed; spiders, the sort with banded legs, spin thick webs; slow wasps can be picked off the fruit and left to be confused; into the open pot the ripe fruits are dropped. On the other side of the hedge are whispers: hazel fronds or ghosts, it cannot be told. The story is indecipherable, the noise fascinating. This sky could bring any weather. The wind is colder than yesterday. Purple fingers sneak through brambles, pluck away the ripe fruits: into the pot they drop: hazel fronds or ghosts: whispers and wind chill bringing welcome shivers.