Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Dog and me walk in dawn mist. Sails and lines web the trees: mesmerize. On the shadowed path I freeze: there is sound behind us, unrecognized. A slow turn shows nothing unexpected: the river is higher: the river catches the bank. A thump of water is the cause! Enlightened, press on: note new points of swirl, the aerial spun silks. As the daylight begins its drop, Dog and me walk in damp field grass; gleaming and fat bladed it is. Feather-scatter marks a kill site: one pale pigeon body rests in the swell of green fronds. Autumn is not all dropped leaf.

Saturday is an early start. Before the sun rises from shapes in mist there is bacon, beans, egg and toast. I forgot my sunglasses, have to squint across Devon to the palm trees of Paignton, until I am in the hall that echoes with anxieties and gathered friends. Today I wear my yellow shirt: it means I am here to shoot troubles, shush nerves, mop stuff up. Today I have a solo small boy to usher, and one lost, and three wrong divisions in two adjacent rings. I have some permissions for photography to liase, one post-fight cry, one pre-fight potential sickness. Where am I queries go uncounted. Two please don't let me miss my fight but I need the loo dilemmas, one sorry kids you missed your call. One big yell for a medic to the men's tag team event. One bout of fielding medical questions to a crowd of puzzled children. A dislocated knee, I tell them, rarely fatal, often painful. Yes, to hospital, I tell them, he can have an anesthetic then while the patella is repositioned

At the night window one brown moth is drawn through the rain. It has no concept of glass, only an obsession for a naked bulb. In pity for this scurry, the blind is lowered. Instead of night there is black silk. Inside the night window, under the bared electric, one writer sits and stares at a screen, listening for the sound of moth wings.

Little Granddaughter tells Nam-ma that whistling is not possible. Nam-ma observes the weather, she says: 'We should go to the beach and get wet and take dry clothes and eat…' 'Ice cream! Look Nam-ma!' But Nam-ma has to keep her attention on the road so they don't crash. Little Granddaughter goes careful down the steps in a pour of rain. 'Come on Fats,' she calls to the beagle. He lumbers first then limbers up, has some moments: puppyish. Dog flies off: a boomerang hound, round and back again. They walk over snaky wild rivers, wade the Widemouth keys, the miniature mountains of low tide rocks. Grandad has the wrong boots for braving the waves: Nam-ma misjudges both depth and speed. Everyone has wet socks. 'Ice cream?' Little Granddaughter remembers. On the way back she proves herself quite wrong: sallies forth a passable whistle.

When it rains if you are tired if you are lucky enough you will be sat comfortably by a window have an uncluttered view: all those little drops will stitch together make a covering sentimental yielding fragranced autumn's rain has a spice a fallen leaf musk: you will breathe it hear the rustle of it let your eyes close.

The porch is walled in coats and boots. Dry mud drifts into corners. Paint flakes off in the bathroom's dampest points. New paint is bought, the tin is under the hand towel pile. Someone has written algebraic formulas on the mirror. The kitchen is ridiculous but it works: as long as we resign ourselves to be always shifting five-gallon tubs of blipping wine. The cupboards are lined with jam. The rumtopf crock is rinsed of dust and filled: squats waiting for the winter dark on the top of a cobwebby cupboard. In the front room two dogs blame each other for that smell. Things gather in boxes waiting for inspiration, for the extra push. Up the pleasantly precarious stairs some sweeping is due. Boy makes a strike against chaos, reports to have found some floor space. His door is shut, he shuffles out, sidles the findings: covert cleaning. In the office the walls are closing in, in lines of shelves. Two lap top screens are shining, twenty fingers are typing, in betwe

Oak Dragon is up to his neck! Rain, the dour forecast tells. A frown at the sky gives hints of otherwise: an even tone to the humid grey, no rain lumps thickening. This and a stirring wind encourage washing to the line, where it swells to corpulence, seems contented. The dogs bark at a grocery van; are reprimanded; slouch and sulk in their beds. All of us are late to bed and early up and not the better for it. There can be no sympathy for this, no surprise: do the same thing, expect different results? Confess to idiocy and pull on boots. A little humility and lots of fresh air. We are but made of human stuff. The rayburn is lit, the coffee strong. The dogs cheer up. Down to the river we go, Mr, Dog, Fat Beagle and me and a tub for berries, to follow the river-fed hedge and see how the water is rising and pick as we find: Cadmium-red rowans: poisonous till cooked please note! Deep-red haws: hanging clear of thorns- Blackberries and elders, both squish t