Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Three kilometres are wandered with a toddler shoulder perched. The path rings half way on the hillside: a view of roots elbowing through soft rock and on the other side, tree tops. She wants to see a horse, the child says, pulling up the earflap on a woollen hat to share a dream. Like magic then two horses round the stony corner, the wind curls their tails as they pass. Pin drops of rain press the walk on, on through the car park out to the café. A pasty is the object sought, this time. There's none: there's a sausage roll. Hot in a paper bag? Later she tells her Grandad: there was no pasty but there was sausage rolls! Like a good punch line. Crumbs down her jumper. Her Grandma smiles and raids the fridge. (Three horses passing on a sunnier day.)

More boot under the mud than over it. The mud is possessive. A limb could easily pull loose from such a gripped piece of footwear. Mud also steals socks. Patience and years of experience are harnessed: a barely perceptible wiggle releases boot and foot together. This repeats over several steps. At ankle deep the effort is less. A grin appears. Nearly stuck. Nearly slipped. Better to be mud slapped than the one who walks past the open gate uncurious. Dog throws herself with the proper abandon and sometimes appears as a head sticking up from the hedge. The sky squeezes out more rain, and more. And what do badgers do for drainage? Gaping in the reddish earth these holes evoke cold versions of the Cu Chi tunnel entrances: are they for badgers, then, or do small people live here? Or something humanoid: trollish or faeriefied? One should not assume to know, of course, lest the world become bereft of surprise.

Wind sings and anything loose in the cut hedges keeps time. Ferns dance at the edge of the quarry pool. Wind fingers trail water, fuzzle reflected trees. Over the river the shelter in the cow field slams a loose roof panel. In the lane a young fox watches; stolid, legs planted, fur thickly smooth, eyes bright: remembers itself, flees sheepish through stubby thorns. Dog runs, returns, sparkling, dripping mud. The fat trunked ash lets the wind loosen dead wood to drop later, unexpected. After the walk the interruptions parcel up: Mum, I need a- it's okay I got one! Where's the internet gone? Can we have a lift? Not yet- oh, never mind. This pasta is delicious! Yay, internet! Parcel: each one takes space and time, is neither entirely unexpected nor a surprise. Simultaneous: tap type check add tweak. Soup By Volume Two pours out. Not dissimilar to the first, of course. But every day has its own flavour. Today is basil, garlic, red wine. Perhaps a h

Little Granddaughter steps out of the bank queue, confidently presses code buttons on the cash point loading door. Eyebrows raise, concerned. I'm not sure what she expected but she tells me it's broken. 'Wass a gonna do?' She shrugs off the problem to the staff. Grab a shiny red wrapped fortune cookie from a counter display is wass a Nam-ma is gonna do: distract. Here, I say, hold this. She decides it will be best if clipped safe in my bag; plays with the satchel clasps and forgets the infant bank heisting. 'Ahh,' say the staff, quite smitten. (Maybe we should try a few more number combinations next time…) Back at the car she sighs in her seat and says she's not tired. She rubs her eyes, makes grumbly noises. 'Hey, I know what we forgot!' I open the cookie wrapper, crack the honey coloured crescent: read. -Ah. I knew that.

Shy spears of snowdrop have been unhidden by the hedge cutting. Halfway through its tenure, winter is wished away. A blue sky is a portentous sky.  A gate that always stands shut; to the field where the dead trees have held long fascination; is open. An open gate is an auguring gate. Here the hoof prints of the jostling bullocks are left, pressed in the soft ground. Here is the rubbed wood of their comfortable scratching: above the knotted roots of the larger trunk, serpentine, vascular. Outlines stark and precise, colours patched, reptilian, like shedding skin, the two trunks stand, faintly lean in: communicative, embracing. Under tender earth the roots are settled, connecting without need. These trees have outgrown leaf bearing. Pared branches unshielded in all the changes of days. Around them the hoof prints are trod and trod, the cud chewed up and forgotten.

Other people's rubbish is made of clues. Like at the shops, when you judge a person by the things that are piled on the counter or (best for spying) rolling down a conveyor belt towards bored check out personnel. (This natural nosiness once prompted what became known as the Rude Shopping Game. Simply fill your basket with bizarre items; for example, plastic handcuffs, a toy mouse, a tube of squeezy cheese and a bobble hat. The idea being to make the check out more fun, give a dull day a talking point.) Today's recycling mission is old leaflets, cardboard and a ripped bean bag that the rabbit once soiled. Other people drop garden waste, some bagged up landfill. How dull. Perhaps the bags contain nefarious items? In the wood skip a garden bench nests in splintered plank ends. Who throws a bench away? The garden waste people? Are they outdoor redecorators? The land fillers? They are smiling and it's horribly cold.

The night and the road are the same shade. There's no demarcation but the car tyres keep to earth. An ice mist breathes on anything stationary. The car tyres roll steady to the door of the warmed cottage. Coals orange as a low sun behind the door of the little Rayburn stove. Boys on the sofa, slouchy, watching a laptop because the television broke. But when they demonstrate the screen goes on and the volume works this time. -Pah! In a pan on the electric hob, leftovers fuse with added chilli. A sip of cold coffee waits in a cup and a dog dreams in her basket. Good news pings on a phone: a boy baby, they haven't settled on a name.