Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

After a roast feast, thinking of Solstice resolutions, put Dog in the back of the old red car, drive to the car park at Feather Tor. We are heading out, just Dog and I, to that intriguing stack but it's past mid-afternoon on the shortest day and that is not the easiest route without a torch. I have my phone for a torch and emergency contact. I have misplaced my gloves, and though the rest of me is adequately togged, this is a sign of poor boding. We change tack, head up Cox Tor instead. It has a nice clear path up and down, level with the car park. At the top the wind is impressive. Stop to take a picture, holding on to the vantage point and my phone: my camera, my torch, my emergency contact; is almost whipped from my fingers. Uh oh. I decide it will be easier to descend shielded, and cross back to the easy path: which at this height on the tor is also easy to miss, especially if it has been raining and the terrain is boggy, slippery, littered in pointy rocks and a person i

Little Granddaughter gives instruction as to where one may hide. In the launderette it is a wedge of space between the supersize tumble dryer and the oddly angled wall. This will be the last place to be searched. It will be her turn, then: she will hide exactly there and it will be the last place to look. In the dryer towels steam, and t-shirts and a stream of clothes, and the twenty pences and the pound coins drop in, till all the washing is dry. Yesterday on the beach the wind blew wave spume and rain so we headed back towards the car and arrived patched in damp so we changed our clothes and bought an ice cream. 'I like a beach,' the flutey voice says, cuddled in with Teddy, a fine vanilla cone, a purple plaid blanket. 'I don't like a sea.' 'Why not?' 'It's crying.' Between wipes across the windscreen the scene is clear: heavy clouded sky, unstill waters, the wave spray leaping, catching low light. 'It's crying?&#

Storm Approaching Water pours brown out of the tap, but hot, restfully hot. Window chinked open to let out steam. Swamp meets spa, lying in mud coloured water, peering through fog. Beyond the glass, trees lash, boughs crack, things whistle, flap, blow away. Storm air tendrils in, gentle-curious. Small dark bodied spiders tuck up in corners. One taupe slug navigates peels of paint, over on the wall where the mould is boldest. The geranium is making an effort. This thought, as the water pours, brown and hot, scooped up for rinses in the plastic pot that once held sweets at the Shaolin Circus: That not in spite of this but because of it, happiness is here . Dog loves Swamp Spa

Day starts, slow as stone, a carved opal In the earth warmth beds down deep There's a level, the rabbits know it Where the frost can't reach Under the window trundles trailer loads Of rich stinky dung, heaped and steamy They are building a castle of it At the top of the field: views of the river valley

Drab weather, indeterminate, damped, that's how it seems, looking out. Indoors smells of spray paint. A cold air stream runs from the door to the open window, brings an earthy edge. Dog is pacing. Metallic-sticky hands wipe down the front of the old smock: a pause to count: twenty years, or more or not much less, of paints layering over blue cotton. Hung up now with silver sparkles drying, a clodge of glue, old colours flaking. Heavyweight rain drummles the lean-to roof. Waterproofs are pulled on. Four oversized papier-mâché baubles glimmer in the cool living room, secretly stuffed with sweets. Dog is prancing. On green wooded paths, precipitation gives a rich shine. Winter's kingdom is deceptive. It blurs and covers. Under the surface life waits, curled in seedpod wrappers. Dog is both ecstatic and replete.

Christmas lights are paused. The extension lead is redirected for a laptop battery boost. Boy clicks and complains of hitting bedrock. We have a houseguest this week: the two lads lean in to the screen and comment. Can't you- Click click. No this is as fast as you can travel, except falling out of the sky down- Click click. Oh, yeah, or there's, you got some smoke I guess- Click click. Dun-du-lalala, dun-du-lalala- Click click. Dog sleeps in her basket, deposed from sofa dominance. Dried mud flecks her coat from our earlier walk; from the storm thrown woodlands where the boughs knocked and the earth coughed pheasants up. Click click. A few Christmas cards are squeezed on the mantelpiece, in amongst the various items: a wooden model man, vegetable seeds, wedding photo, address labels. Click click. Have you ever made a cannon- Click click. No- You haven't lived! I'll show you- Click click. In comes Mr, shuffles himself a sofa spot. The la

In the car I am doing the flipside of a road rage: the untrammelled voluminous song. Sorry, pedestrians, for the flinch the noise caused: but not for the noise. What tune it held or dropped is irrelevant. The lack of trammel is the crux. In a sky of black glass the half-moon shears off rays, squint-bright. Stars are set, expertly: some sort of algorithm one suspects. No matter what I write about, I write about the transcendence of fear. Not the conquering of fear itself, only the debilitation of it.  I write appreciation, the most useful and genuine form of love.  I write how to measure the weight of your life.  The more I write like this the more I think it, feel it, live it.  I look for it. One who looks stands back from the crowd. If we all look there should be no crowd: only company. And after the journey of song and thoughts, the old red car reverses up the driveway. For further entertainment there is wine to drink, and watching a bellied moon get stuck in a t