Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Christmas is sparkling over the horizon. Littlest grandson has been here a whole year: a big brother, we say to his big brother: you have been a big brother for a whole year - do you remember when your little brother was born- what do you remember? This is a ridiculous question to pose a usurped four year old. ‘He bought me a present.’ (Rolls eyes, seems to be wondering how we could have forgotten this, the main part of the tale.) We watch Home Alone and lose at balloon baseball and so are forgiven. The little brother laughs. He has cheese and crackers, teeth, and the new art of walking. Presents are peripheral things. At bed time, the littlest cuddles in his cot; the big brother wants a story. Granma tells him Ronko the Rude Clown, while Grandad smirks on the stairs. Of all the reading gigs, the bedtime audience is the most intense. One pair of eyes shining in delighted disgust as Ronko gets his stinky karma! One imagination sparked: the sparks seem visible. ‘Tell me a

This place is packed with distractions. Like this ice edged purple sprout. It is November, the latter part. On this planet. What of other planets? I mis-type November, but only once, as Novelber. Today is not for writing but for dragging rows of numbers around, making accounts. The first frosts have visited; two mornings in a row, now comes rain, falling thickly, hypnotic. Thoughts wander in this weather they go anywhere. (Always blame the weather.) Numbers add up to a headache. Still some apples hold on branches: last all winter through, sometimes, some types. They are best to see frosted: fruit and ice growing: crunchy, sweet, fantastic! I’m supposed to be - but the phone keeps interrupting - nearly gets turned off - It rings. A finger hovers to stamp out the noise: why is that number ringing? Because it’s Wednesday. Not Tuesday. Wednesday!! If you know film terms, this is the dolly track zoom moment. If not, the word ‘lurch’ will help. I am supposed to b

It could have been one of those projects that lingered into a domestic mythology. We do have such a pantheon; minor deities of projects such as boot racks and office tidies that add something to the ambience of clutter, we find: a sense of a purposeful future, perhaps: stuff that could happen. Yesterday or thereabouts I had wiggled the iron weight of the old bath till there was room to dig the hole that would reposition it as our new pond. Then it rained a bit, nothing more, here, was done. But, then, Little Granddaughter was here and how we love an outdoor project! Enough to disregard inclement weather and at least turn over some turf. The ground here is clay-dense, rock littered: generally. ‘Granma, watch me!’ A trowel’s fill of mud gets flung high over the rockery. Such is the power generated when three years’ life experience connects with earth. Somewhere between the surprise of finding good top soil, the lightness of drizzle, and this power of youthful enthusing, we

Today’s focal accomplishment was not the coconut rice, though it remains a favoured dish in the menu rounds. Too much concentration focused on the compilation of a folder, in which, page by page, fresh from the printer, a novel was stored. My novel, not often discussed. Brainwashing or true belief, I’m not sure, only A Writer Writes: a writer does not talk of writing, this is wasting writing time. Except for those moments when I fume about synopsis and blurb, they are functional safety vents. Only one chapter went in to the folder backwards, and this (bloop 1) was remedied swiftly. The other two bloops were in the rice. I double salted (bloop 2) and though I did not forget the chilli, I did neglect to chop it into less than one whole piece (bloop 3) which gave Houseguest Ben quite the surprise. Sets of three being culturally usual here, I am hoping that this pepper incident is the last bloop for today. Small things all, set against the general malaise over the loss of our

Up in the polytunnel, the vine had snapped its tether and fallen over, flouncing out red leaves, exposing and breaking  a root bound pot. Planting out could not be deferred, no matter how low the desire to dig another hole. Heavy soil, we have, thick with clay, set with obstacles. Vines will not like it, so we have devised a planting tube. A crock of old pottery and some sifted out stones make a drainage band, the rest is compost, lighter layers of top soil, fine volcanic rock. And there it is, finally planted. There may be grapes, or not, next year. But unless we had spilled this sweat, we would never know: therein the satisfaction lies.

Skulking around the rabbit hutch, we saw her first, a small framed fluffy cat. I chased her off. She skulked the old sheds instead, then, wary of contact. Until: it was somewhere around 2am at the party we hosted for Girl’s nineteenth birthday, when thronged drunks were outdoors attempting disorderly and giving up, on account of being too drunk. We had dragged out garden benches and sat laughing, and into the middle of the scrum-cackle this cat appeared, and friended us, and walked into the open house and lived there. We called the vets, the next day, holding gingerly our coffee mugs, but none of her description were on the missing cat list. We still aren’t sure why we let her stay. It was the right kind of house for her, perhaps; certainly she proved a tyrant to the cheeky mice. Sometimes in the mornings she would have slime trails on her, a sign of a deep hedge sleeper. Her fur dreaded up. She didn’t much care for grooming. We named her Shambles and never knew how old she was.

Parking on the grass is denied by wheel spin.  The lanes are not for walking but splashing and how clear the water is, with that subtle property of magnification, framing old bits of leaf, saturating colour, and the sun puts warm on your face in these blue sky intervals and the water runs downhill, gurgling.  Clouds travel in thickly flanked formations. In a field a coated horse tail-flicks and observes how starlings burst upwards from grass, up to the bare ash branches to make their mass noise. Optimism pegs washing out: it gets a thorough second rinse before the sun interval repeats. It does not matter. It was not so unexpected but it cannot be predicted. Every day we can wonder what will happen next.