Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

[Photo credit: Tim Flach, via Pinterest] Miss Olivia Shoreditch had been in her bed for three days straight. She had her reasons, though reason itself had deserted her. There was nothing about it she could recall through any medium but her gut instinct. A terrible thing had occurred, she knew, though not what; she was attempting to recover, and she must get up slowly as there was an angry bear in the corner of her room.  I will describe to you the bear.  If it were in front of us now the first attribute to draw our attention would be the phenomenal size of it. It was standing upright, its head curved along the ceiling, hunched from the shoulders. Darkly purplish fur, thick and warm looking, the texture attractive, imbued with an aroma of stale blood, rank and coppery. Claws, lacquered black - hiding any sort of dirt - light slid along the curve of them. Teeth in dark gums were creamy coloured, stained in rusty blotches. Saliva hung pendulous, a burgundy tongue loiter

Eight days in, October settles as a backdrop. It has been easy to find every warm moment a June/July sort of day, to greet cooling with a ‘perhaps September?’ To wonder if I had seen August at all. Some years are like this, impervious to months. No less imbued. One need not drift closed. But here I am, taking note of the date, coal dust wiped absently across face, bellyful of rich stew, heavy eyed, snuggled in wool, bare footed. House is a mess, of course, of course: bustling life, not all of it human. Here we are, at a time when blackberries begin an ebb, haws and hips glow bold-red, fennel seed dries, marigolds, nasturtiums bloom: yellow to orange, orange to red. First swathes of bronze foliage, first drop of leaf. House spiders return to roost. Ten days in, first frost. First defrosting dance around the car in the demi-dark, feet in winter boots. Sky spreads red-orange-yellow, opens up blue; at midday we cast off jumpers. In shops vast boxes of pumpkins have arrived, sup

Through thick warm air fly globules of delight for field foraging birds: free range slug stuffed with organic homegrown tomatoes, freshly plucked from my polytunnel, and hand flung over a blackthorn hedge. Served with a shout: ‘It’s the circle of life!’ This is a rare day off, but I’m useless at slacking. An assembly of grandchildren would assist. They would love slug hurling and interrupt every other thing.  I’ve put the last of the lavender to dry, and a batch of rosemary, and calendula. Chives are cut, bagged, frozen. Tomatoes salvaged from predators and blight. Raspberries picked. The washing pile eradicated, for a day. And so, and such until the clouds pink and the sky darkens and a fuzzy moon loiters. Then I sit in my hammock and listen. I hear a mollusc munching. Birds lullaby. Owl. No further action is required. No bedtime-stalling supper, no stories to read, no stinky nappy, no ailments or shrieking laughter. Think of the culprits instead, a little inventory, a list o

In my mind the seasons have been separate gods. Spring, a maiden, moving ice to melt; summer, a predator, hot, basking, growly; autumn, a russeted stag, richly coloured, rarely frivolous; winter, a skeletal beast, empathetic, stoic, truthfully harsh. This year’s transition differs. Summer, gently, in the thick of mist, becomes Autumn. It’s not that time has existed in seasonal boxes, rather I had thought of each year-quarter as a thing outside of time; eternal, revisiting. Time was something we viewed them through. This year, something in my mind steps though the window. One thing becomes; replaces, supersedes; another thing, an evolution, and more precious for its brevity. I have run with gods for years and years, I have knelt to marvel, not unseeing, not unmoved. But this year? It is only I, feeling heat soothe out of earth, observing leaves slowly gilded, reaching my fingers to a ripened blackberry; yet more amazed, more alive to the miracle than I ever remember. The

1 In the dark we lay, in hammocks, wine tables at hand, each with a full glass; watching Perseid meteors, arrows of red-gold in Milky Way foam. Laugh, loudly, forgetting it is midnight. Ability to be delighted: this too we are grateful for. Arrows or eels, foam or powder - how a thing is seen, always debatable. Glass half full or half empty? Refillable! We shout, forgetting time has crept past midnight. 2 Storm winds galvanise clouds. In the day, sun pierced each break; the escapees had dropped rain, heavy pocketfuls, like stolen scree. Roses, grown tall, lash at porch glass. Windows have their latches tested. Roofs are pried. Too warm, to have everything shut. We would gape, separated from moving air. It is beyond vantage here - but we feel it, keening - the weight of the wild sea.

Rivers run slick with it. Cut fields hewn from it. Bared skin, too, holds a shine of sun. Into this time slot, to her own unhurried schedule, Grandchild 5 makes an appearance. Pink-gold, cute as a vintage tea cup. She slumbers under day’s fine light, wakes in the dark. Grandchild 3 ponders sisterhood. She observes that babies make parents tired. Could they could be responsible for rain that cancels a trip to the park? Still, she deigns to kiss the infant on her forehead, an experiment in early love. ‘Granma,’ she whispers, ‘look - I’ve got jewellery.’ She shows each amulet on her new anklet. How the star shape has a sparkle in the centre of it. Her very own sparkle. Granma agrees it is beautiful. The gleam of it. How it is crafted. 

Low and hot, the weather was affecting us. We thought in deficits, in morbid fractals. Lost, we retraced an old path: we went to the beach, of course. Trod ourselves over the flat stones, the fine sand, dumped our bags down, set the dogs free. Dog will plunge in, we know. Fat Beagle will wade to his ample waist and stare out while we decipher his expression: something at once dignified and put-upon, satisfied and wary. A rare piece of sea glass is discovered, green, the best kind. Into a bag pocket it is hoarded. Our possessions left below the tide line for the tide is far away and still pulling back. The sea must be clambered to, and swimming is hilarious, for one can only slither between the rounded rocks, and laugh, and our laughing is sea spray, is wings in flight, is sunlight on facets of wave. Up to his waist Fat Beagle stands. Dog runs so much she lames a leg. Our hot car smells like seaweed and dog farts. The journey home is gladly broken. Now we sit eating chip