Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

There was a time I was smaller than this. Barefoot, summer-frocked, home-cut hair. If were lucky, smelling like cheap ice pops. It was one of those times I followed my father along the seawall. The storm had passed, it was warm, the tide halfway. My father, who photographed everything; I don’t recall him holding a camera. Everything I remember smelt like clean salt and beach heated seaweed; perhaps because it was fresh. The whale was fresh. We were empty handed. This memory opens like a box of that fresh sea air, streams out, tidal, blue-green. We are tiny, perched over a rock. Below us the whale carcass looks, mournful, out to the ocean. It cannot go home. It is oblivious to my awe, to being an  object of awakening. The oceans are That Big. Nature is immense. Above us, sky, space. We are tiny, perched in time, perched in space. Wow. I was four, maybe five years old. Forty years ago. And here, on Wansonmouth Beach, I am walking, barefoot. My daughter cuts my hair and I fo

Tractors rumble, back and forth to the field where a wind turbine will be installed. The dirt they carry has an orange cast, looks iron rich, but today they dig the earth to harvest the weather. Some loathe the turbine blades whirring in the landscape: not me. A blend of sleek futuristic styling and eco friendliness, to a girl who would live in a cave but keep the wifi? A cool wind swoops, the sun plays blaze and hide, clouds take interplanetary sizes. Our seedlings cling in the ground, dazzled. The taller plants only know that they have made it this far, no one is an expert. The peas have an exuberant way of growing: throw as they grow and curl and climb, experimental, without regrets. Like a tumble of pea blossoms, our grandchildren at play; Grandchild 3 has her second birthday: the diary is checked because it seems she has been here longer: but do we remember not having any of them? How the present can alter one’s perception of the past! Grandchild 3 has a fine sense of purpo

A working wheel on your wheelbarrow makes a difference. Three loads I had brought with the flat tyre, and satisfaction had balanced difficulty. But with a pumped new tyre, nine loads flew up from the horse field today. The newest raised bed is nearly filled, is covered with pots where we decide what will take root where. A working wheel is better, though the lack of it enhanced the joy of having. I am learning to love ease. To sit back after the work and admire. In the polytunnel the squashes and the melons have their handmade frames, and I have a mug of coffee.

Summer’s first month arrives with its two weather predictions: a drought will come - or relentless rain. The first thirteen hours hold dry, though the air is heavy-humid and the wind skitters in the manner of an overtired child.  Down comes the windbreak, blown flat. Grandchild 2 breaks from learning to skip. It’s cold. We go indoors to eat peanut butter. (She is tired from her weekend party. She loves all her presents. She loved the candle on her cake, it was a number four. She loved the cake but she didn’t eat any except the horn of the pink icing unicorn and a sugar daisy.) A small storm visits our cottage gardens. Next door’s gazebo is brought down, bunting flapping on the grass like bright triangular fish. Our tallest broad bean is bent over the side of the raised bed, it looks seasick. Later today I will tie it back up.  We never know the weather, I will say, until our faces are in it, and however set it seems, it always changes. The plants all know this, of c

Houseguest Ben arrives at the door of the polytunnel. ‘There’s a bird in the bathroom,’ he reports. ‘One you know?’ I ask. (This is not a play on slang terminology for female persons.) ‘It’s not the chaffinch.’ He laughs, glances at the hedge. (Ben was stalked by a chaffinch one memorable afternoon. It is this bird to which I refer.) This unknown avian visitor is a summer bird, too quick for him to catch: I come down to see if I will have more luck. ‘You’re beautiful,’ I say. Dark glossy plumage with a red throat, sleek split tail, pointed wings; sat on the shower rail, head at a listening tilt. A compliment is what it has been waiting for, for as the words are uttered it flies out of the window, leaving a tidy curl of dropping on the bath lip. Next door’s garden hosts a teddy bear’s picnic party. A swallow has nipped in to use our bathroom. What else might happen? The new car is out there somewhere still: Southampton, the man on the phone had puzzled, our cars co

Saturday: Garden: wheeled up topsoil from the heap in the horse field with a borrowed barrow, ours needed a new tyre.  Mr went to buy a new one, twice: first the wrong size then the right, then the pump broke.  We have a new flat tyre. It’s closer to perfection than it was. The newest raised bed stinks with rotted grass. Saturday evening: drove over the Severn Bridge, squinted at sun-bloom on the wide river, admired the geometry of cables, the bold shadows. Arrived in time to watch theatrical acts compete on various televisual shows. Eager and numerous as the flies on our rotted grass: this is what it is to be an artist my dears.  Just be the fly you want to be. The six year old who was staying up late decided she would rather be a dog. She would go to bed, but she would be practicing her bark, quietly; but her brother had already woken from his own coughing.  Everyone went to bed later than intended. Sunday: morning brought rain. While the earth d

In Southampton, there is a brand new car. A mid-spec economical white because that’s the least expensive colour car… It is waiting for paperwork. Just routine paperwork. Finance is approved. What will happen? Life will be buzzed with a paintwork gleam, though it’s the same life; this is good, we are grand fans of our lives here. The financial commitment makes us scared, this is not a change. Money worries pelt us with such consistency, we should have learned to dodge by now. But we’ve compromised: we have become bold. A few more bits of paper will move and make the car get on a truck, to be brought to us. We will go to the garage and drive it away. A gesture of faith in ourselves? Yes, we say. Yes. Meanwhile the garden grows. We toil to help it; dig holes, fill holes, fit raised beds. Hand feed our seedlings. The picnic table drops into weathered pieces. We sit at particular angles to keep safe, bowls of rice steaming, birds flinging in bursts of food finding, territ