Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Anxious happy: calm is the desired state. Think of the mind as flat water. On the shore so many fine grained, foliated, metamorphic rocks: perfect pieces of creation, the perfect size to hold, smooth, multi-tonal. It won't be long before a few bounce out, skimming rings; a visual echo. These waves descend from surface to sediment: they are dippy, in their hither-thither, deep in their love, predictable, wonderful. Little Grandson is with his cousins. He needs a distraction or two. A shore of stones would do well for him. When he was done with the tricks of magicking spray: like walls of water: he would see how a wall could be built on the land. A line of the stones, layered up. A house, or a castle: something more permanent than the splash and no less charmed. In the garden will be enough trees to feed a herd of friendly dinosaurs. Maybe he will sit on the wall and look at the reflective water, at how the world can be upside down and this is how things are.

Down to the river curiosity draws booted steps. Today is a day to kick off boots, if the washed squash is still there, oddly trapped: wade out to find out if it's real, plastic or other as yet uncertain thing. It is there, an orange shine between weeded rocks. It still seems unexpected. The shallows are shallower, today: the boots have clearance, an inch at least below the rim. There's a  comprehensible  path for the rescue, which contains mild peril. The water pushes, impressively weighted. Rocks underfoot are loose, and slippery. Measured steps, practiced calm, a hand stretched to steady on a halfway boulder. And then, the squash is lifted: proves itself real, being flawed and open under the waterline. I can see seeds in the cavity. Steadily, back track, lift it higher on the bank, out of the flood plain into a bed of moss and dry leaf.

Subdued sun: noon has early evening light. Plants are frost-brittle. A quality of stoppage rules the sky until a distant shotgun ruffles up the pigeons. The hedge is warmly hued, under the glistening freeze: if the sun were fiercer today it would steam, like the neck of a serpent in a torrid swamp. Over the roll of the earth Dog and I stroll, happily absorbed, homewards. On the couch a damp Dog has snuck. In through windowpanes a brief lift of sun: it compliments the handsome leaves of the avocados.

A tonnage of leaf from pale to brassy rustles like brushes on cymbals. The river silvers and suddenly a pumpkin is caught between two rocks. I want to fetch it but the water would flood my boots. I don't why I didn't take off the boots: to avoid the cold, in spite of adventure? If I had reached it I would have placed it above flood level and wondered all year: will pumpkins then grow wild in the woods? It was smooth and unsmashed so perhaps it was plastic. I would have brought it home to decorate the garden or tumble into a recycle bin. Whatever the truth: I stood in the shallows, brimmed with marvel.

The air is notably colder. It condenses, crunches into surface ice. Coffee flask rolls in the passenger foot well: glugs, reassuring. Bags are packed and loaded. The address is not difficult to find. The house is cute. Here is a child I saw last as waving white fuzz on an ultrasound. Here are the dogs I walked: three years ago over the flattened sands of Castle Rock. Here we are, eating curry and talking names for a newer baby while a blonde elf child scores the dresses on a dance show. A Staffordshire terrier curls underfoot. The other, the scruffy part Lurcher, sleeps on his cushion. You should know his story: that once my friend was having a terrible day and sat on the steps of a theatre. A neglected fur tangle snuck up to sit in comfort with her. She saw the burns on his whippy body and could only take him home. There was talk of the Dog Warden, initially. If we can't home him… the man said. He has a home, she decided. A future. Curry simmer wobbles the stovetop pan

In the night the world is crystallised. In the distance is traffic noise: here only one human, a cat, a few chickens, a dog stirs. Sun edges a dark cloud much as flame edges a fry pan. In the field Dog wakes the wild birds, springs two roe deer. She catches nothing, cares not, exhales happy steam. In pale cloud scatters the moon is camouflaged. From the horizon a puzzling dot grows into a hot air balloon.

Day cold bright in blue, in luminous cloud Washing scarcely dries on the rotary line Though the wind breathes all over it A day does what it does so a fire is struck A half load of t-shirts dangle in the polytunnel The grass grows overlong underneath Indoors, the wet towels and trousers of today's wash Hued inky, plum, pitch-black Drape the amber wood of the old clotheshorse Silver change gathers in a pot, for later, for the launderette.