Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

The front tyres at the outer edge show a zigzag of tread, as one would expect, but when the wheel is turned to park, no pattern at all is visible at the inner edge. To the tyre fitters the old car goes; the driver alarmed and repentant. She drives straight in, the way being unimpeded, into the tall rectangle of the workshop, leaves the key in the ignition. She opens the door marked Reception.  Out of the wind it is warm. In this building within a building a large window attempts to bring in natural light but the plant has withered despite this and the careful bit of string support tied through a ceiling tile strut, and the tennis ball sized glitter ball hanging from a cable tie on the bamboo stick. The leaves were heart shaped, once. A man with a face that has known weather sits at the desk. He asks after tyre sizes, and they'll check the tracking for free. Would she want it fixed, if the tracking is out? Yes, she says, emphatic. It's not usual for tyres to wear li

This year, if I think of it as alive, has a yearning for adventure: more specifically, a quest: a pulsing and a push. Not this shared calendar year: this, my year. One can own time: one's own time. Who else would have it? Who else does have it? My utopia is a work of art: is a collaborative work of art. Living is a creative process. An ongoing, interactive, lit up process. Life has such vitality, firsthand and through memory: and memory need not be something that is carved out, but can be a plastic art, informed by one's own experience: is like a torch passed on, it lights one's own view, yet burns a previous fuel. All this is thought, walking steep up the grassed hill; the wind blows cold, the clouds, rowdy, travel in packs. All this, thought, whilst stuck in the hedge, caught by a wire barb. Two cuts neat on a boot toe: one triangular hole in the back of a coat. Happy with a wet toe, sliding down to the river banks where the anemones chuckle. It rains,

Surprised by a squeeze from the transverse abdominis whilst dropping onionskins in a pot for stock. Could be a result of rapid furniture moving or clambering loose-footed paths on steep slopes; with a couple of prized deer bones gripped in hand; or wandering waist deep in the slippery cold river, favoured bones slung makeshift in a scarf. But despite the upper abdominal flinching, thoughts are focused on soup. Soup is made of items found. It is made when we are not sure what else to do for nourishment. It is best made slow. It is best made with time to scent the earth inside each mushroom as the knife slides through: to let an onion sting, to smile at the orange flesh of a drab skinned sweet potato: to feel each density, hear the thock of knife edge contacting the chopping board: to see the irregular, the pleasing collection, chopped and mixed in the old iron crock, glossy with melted ghee: to feel the anticipation as it is set upon the Rayburn hob with stock water a

Settled in the Iron Age, in modern times known mainly for its sauce: Worcester, that's where we began our return journey. The journey up encompassed a visit to our youngest granddaughter, who is breaking out teeth and standing up, ready to morph through toddlerhood. In spite of teeth she smiles and cuddles: brave and cute. The journey up was obstacled only by inner Bristol road works. We paused overnight there, guests of my brother and sister in law, treated to fine Taiwanese dining. I slept like a hog, too accurately, Mr says: snoring, he says. Oh karma, says I. I pour him coffee. Set up the navigation device. Feed him honeyed sesame and the roads are clear and the sky bright. Venue parking is all used up: the next spot is a pleasant canal side walking distance during which we learn that Worcester also homes the world's oldest surviving newspaper. Berrow's Journal, should you wish to look it up. The parking has cost two pounds sterling for the whole

Mist covers the morning, greyed, as though the road dirt has tainted it. No sun burns through. Cold holds the day. Snow could fall. The field where the old barn sits, beams cracked; calm in the process of demise; is unpopulated. The walk leads off road, over the stile and finds a line of spine and rib, a skull, the bones of two back legs. What was badger lies on grass, posed like a medical illustration, too unusual to be repulsive. Shinbones poke down into feet, a dancing skeleton in boots. Because of this: the curiousness, the nonchalance, it seems composed to this fate, even celebratory; it retains a certain vitality. I lived a badger's life , it says, and died a badger's death. And that is how wise badgers judge success. Dog sniffs, seems to agree, trots along the hedge, down the broad curving grass, over the opposite stile. Mud, ankle deep, heaps on rubber booted feet. They wash clean in the brook. A swirl of wet earth flows over flat stones, under the reflecte

Woke inadvertently having slipped into a parallel realm. It has no sense of humour. It is clumsy and it frowns too quick, although the day begins in bold white fractals of mist. Nothing in this time is less beautiful, yet the empathy for it is absent. Whether the change is irreversible is unknown. As a cure, time is spent outside, where the mist merges into blue sky, shiny untrammelled sun. In the sleepy heat some semblance of normality shimmers: and the rich tang of earth turned with dung in the surrounding fields is not unfamiliar. It is the right Earth, of course, it is the person who is wrong. It is the usual kind of wrong, of course: simply overtired. Deceptively simple and infiltrative. Easier to put one's self in another dimension than admit that the idiocy has struck again. Or to say, the creative output is worth it, or even that it is tied into this delirium: but life is the most authentic creative experience: but then this is part of the experience: a strengt

A similar ping of intuition to the one that gave life to this cure-all blog: I recognise it. It must be followed. It makes not so much sense at first: to start a private blog that only I read. I have notebooks and a pen, I have always had notebooks. What is wrong with my notebooks? Apart from the lack of organisation? Yet somehow it does feel… sensible? So yesterday, unbeknownst, a secret blog was duly initiated. Not so clandestine that I can't speak of it. It's more that I can't explain it. I'm building it as a small child constructs, artful and subconscious. Meanwhile Dog is arching gracefully on the sofa. She appears adorable and wafts an eggy cloud. My Buddha-self says this is a lesson that one must not be too caught up in appearance for the substance may be rotten. My nose suggests a new lid for the Dog-raided compost bin. There is no discrepancy in following the spiritual and the practical advice. There is washing on the line in the dark waitin

Much as the skeletal shed haunts us, it is a weekend for treats. So on Saturday we take in a self defence workshop, which might not be everyone's idea of leisure but Mr learnt a new application for W-block and my wrist restraint release moves have perked up measurably. Saturday evening Little Granddaughter comes over, over tired, unimpressed. Spongebob calms her. She sleeps for twelve hours. Sunday morning she wakes in a helpful mood. We cook Grandad some breakfast. Teddy must help too. Also one has to stop to play the recorder. And catch some clouds in a jar. And find the missing duckling. And explain why it isn't time for a bath yet. And help Teddy learn to play the recorder. Teddy looks after the ducks but all the clouds escape. Teddy is not a good at multitasking. Nam-ma makes a LARGE COFFEE and plates up. Slow cooked breakfast is the best kind, after all. Sunday afternoon a planned trip to Minions, with Girl and Miss Kirsty and Dog added to the ento

Mindfulness is seeing: this circle of dark coffee held in a mug. It is thinking of the journey the coffee has taken: from the plantation slopes, growing; harvested, roasted, packaged, shipped, purchased; all those transactions bring it here, to this encircling mug, steaming hot like the slopes of its origin. Mindfulness is feeling: chilled tiles under bare feet, faint heat of sleepy eyes, morning air fresh against skin, the comfort of thick socks, hands holding a mug drawing in warmth. Mindfulness is hearing: next door, the Rayburn rattles, riddled to unburden ash; outside the wind sings, the birds respond, loose ivy taps glass; in this room a dog sighs and the arm of the waving cat tocks like a grandfather clock. Mindfulness is smelling: coffee, moss on the dampish logs stacked to dry, pungent old onion in the compost tin, clean sap in the split kindling, charcoal in the smoulders of last nights fire, fine dust of ash; hints of dog and soap and leather boots. Mindfuln

Today: Only this morning I knew exactly what to write: held it just as clearly as if it had been written down. Somewhere in the day it has slipped from memory, is lying somewhere metaphysical, ink blurring in soft rain. Yesterday: 'Dance Nam-ma! It's a man-an-a-tar!' Little Granddaughter demands as we walk past the busker at the low end of Plymouth. After this exertion we eat pasties and two buses collide on Royal Parade. The accident had been there all along, a man says; it was waiting to happen. Nam-ma extrapolates that therefore it is a happy accident, being fulfilled: but one should not wait to happen, as a rule.

Nothing seemed wrong, not entirely. Small clues, like the way the cereal pack was inside the fridge and the milk on the shelf. The sky was draped in rainy fuzz, it came all the way down to the ground. It wasn't cold as winter, but it wasn't warm. Daffodils were opening up. They shivered in the wind. I was writing in the past tense, I noticed: it had been an unconscious choice. A sense of grief pervaded. A sorrow that could pour out and down and seep into unfrozen ground; touch the waking seed, the feathery splay of root; and up will grow such fabulous blooms, such tender shoots: raw at first then weathered in and growing, always growing into something that spreads out like branches; gives out limbs to climb and dangle heels from and think of childhoods; a shade for quiet thought; blossoms for the beauty of fun; fruits that ripen, nourishing, fermentable, bringing cheer.

Out of the culvert a red-brown body streaks, a four legs bushy tail body. Distance makes it vole sized. Hunched angle of head makes it angry. One hundred yards behind a white-brown body bounds, a four legs tail wagging body. Enthusiasm has rendered this one conveniently deaf. After some joyous time it returns, tongue akimbo. As suspected, it is Dog: glorious Dog, her mud all glossy and giving a slight steam to the cold midday air. She has lost her tennis ball and still looks to me to throw it. She is not a creature of detail in any sense but the olfactory. We head homewards. Half a dozen items dangle from the washing line, blowing lazy. 'Where d'you go?' Mr asks from his skeletal shed-in-progress. 'Chasin' Fox,' I tell: I tell the diminutive narrative of our field hike: how the tennis ball is dropped unheeded in the undergrowth and the fox is cross. In the kitchen a jug of pancake mix is ready for cooking up. Four fresh daffodils poke from

The sky, hung grey, is handsome. Across the hills are cloud stacks, lined up as if for a chess game. A spill of indigo beneath these silvered pieces. Between the flat slate and the snow-capped cerulean, a wide curtain of colour drops, as the rain drops, as the spectrum splits. Trees peer at their pooled reflections, see how buds swell from wet bark. Hedgerows are polkaed in primrose. Water rises to greet each footprint.

I had set myself a story challenge, for one must have trials in order to grow. We need it like the spring flowers need to feel the earth unfreeze. He or she: you will need it (whomsoever and wheresoever in space and time you may be. You may even be plural, it still applies. Maybe that's enough pronouns and tenses for now though…) And like a growth spurt, out and up the stories pop! A rude clown, a tempted magpie, a lucky explorer, an unfortunate robot and advice for children in a zombie apocalypse; a bad stomach, a dragon-eye gem, tropical monsters, regrettable sausages, some new shoes, camouflage and suitable retaliation. Happy sigh! Yesterday Dog and I strolled a field, new to us: steep and possessed of a wide view. Over the corner curve we found deer bones, sun bleached, porous as coral: a line of trees with tentacle roots, storm twisted branches. Familiar with the elements, ne'ertheless, it is a new world. Through a hedge gap squeezes four legs, two legs:

The Snow Child  is inspired by the Russian fairy tale The Little Daughter of the Snow. I am partial to a renewal of an old tale, it's a reminder that the important themes of humanity don't change so much. It is set in 1920s Alaska, and the landscape forms a good part of the story. Jack and Mabel are looking for a new life, looking to escape the grief of losing a baby. They find solid happy company in their neighbours. They find a child who lives feral in the wilderness. The rest I won't spoil for you, even if you can guess the story. This is a book that encompasses the visceral truth of nature but doesn't dwell in the negative. Neither does it enforce a positivist view. It flows and describes: 'She had no way to know its age or gender, but there was something in the light-colored chin and long, coarse whiskers that reminded her of an old man's beard. From a distance the otter gave a comical, mischievous impression, but when it slithered close Mab

Finished reading the book I'd like to share rather early this morning and have not written a review today for which I do apologise. Will be joining the party tomorrow/later today (depending on when this apology is read.) Meanwhile please do enjoy Dog's well groomed smile :-)

If I pick a moment to savour it's often coffee. There are other things, other colours, textures, scents, flavours, sounds that draw emotive pictures all over every level of my brain and soul. But often, it's coffee. This morning somehow the flask, the dinky pink crackled flask brimming with cold perky coffee for optimum morning alertness, is left on the kitchen worktop. Thoughts of it standing by the red plastic kettle and the crumby white toaster, waiting, have to suffice. In the supermarket there is something I am supposed to buy yet forget: the lure of bargains, perhaps the thought of biscuit dunked, the classic bitter sweet: anyway, the self-serve checkout beeps through two organic chocolatey packets: it fritters away a mere pound sterling. At home, an old friend arrives, all the way from France, unexpected: how lovely then, to have biscuits! And post arrives, in a box. A box of Vietnamese coffee. A thick brew at lunchtime accompanies a retrospective: t

My old friend the river returns: runs softly by, waves as though we had seen each other only yesterday. Sit down, the burbles say, down here on the felled tree bench. Swing your feet and dream. Sing Dock Of The Bay . See how the foliage reflects, and the sky, tessellating portions of coloured water. Line up sticks to lob for Dog, it's safe for her to swim. -Sitting in the morning sun- A heft cut from a horizontal trunk; that water, cheery calm, carrying images of quivery leaves. Feet catch in the surface. Dog's cape of wake spreads behind her. -I'll be sitting when the evening comes- Time is out: not stopped or the river would not move: we're just: out. -Watching the ships come in- A leaf plays the part, though it's inexpertly navigated. 'Hey leaf, when's my ship coming in?' It pretends not to have heard. Maybe it dislikes the cliché. Clichaic: that should be a word. Should it? As in: read this novella, you'll h

'I fancy a walk to the woods, to see that upended tree,' Mr says. His eyes are narrowed, ready for peering. We look out of the windows. Debris blown from hedges and bins escapes across the currant patch. Cloud cover; unfathomable. Plaintive whir of wind circles the old aerial. Thoughtful furrows mark his face. 'It might not be the weather for it.'  We try the back windows, just in case. Next door's tall fir bends. Is that a full ninety degrees? I'm thinking. He says: 'Beach?' We know at Northcott Mouth these winter storms have uncovered remains of a wrecked ship; we have no tide table, we just like the idea of it. It's enough. Once you have the spark, you should follow it. The espresso pot burbles. Coal scrapes loudly from the scuttle into the red mouth of the little Rayburn. Goodbye house! Where the wreck lies, the waves are foaming. They make sea-snow over sharp dark rocks. Foam bobbles fly over bared pebbles

 Somehow over Dartmoor there seems to be more sky: more headspace. It's the perfect place for freethinking wanderers. The ground is bogged, so land level observation is required except when the boots strike granite. It's rare indeed to sink in granite. Astride the Tor top rock eyes lift to see how clouds pattern. How fleeting it appears; how easily dark and light can shift. Yes, I suppose the lesson is just this. Refreshed by literally lofty thought, feet follow spindly trails through low gorse. As though an old grass tussock there transmutes, a bird suddenly exists and flies. A mouth, awed, forms an Oh. And while this distraction leaves a sharp impression of fine beige feathers, the eyes swoop further, inspired, vaguely aware of a person paused up on an outcrop; standing somewhat short of stature, rotund in a white puffer jacket. Oh! The person shifts, reveals four legs: is actually a sheep.