Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Dear Friends, Today I tidied the unfathomable shed. Under rusting shelves a bag was malingering, clinking, but in a way that seems more like muttering, as I dragged it out. Contents: six forgotten bottles of six year old homemade cider. It would be vinegar by now, useful for a weed suppressant or wood preserver.  Taking the precaution of being outside - having summoned Mr also, should I be in need of first aid - grimacing for glass splinters, the first bottle catch was flipped - and out burst foam that smelled of cider, good dry cider. I dipped a finger, then a tongue - good dry cider it was! So we took a glass each. Shortly after this I fell asleep in my hammock, later to be woken by a heavy bee resting on my cheek. I went to look at the shed, and the bottles, now lined in the fridge to tame down the fizz, and none of it was a dream. There were many more jobs to do, of course, and many of them done. On hanging up the washing I found a slug in a trouser pocket (they come out

This day someone had turned the technicolour on.  We lift our sunglasses to check, and quickly put them down again. It is hard to tell colour from fire, flower from lava.  Grandchild 2 is home with us, too poorly for school, and I too am feverish, though it is hard to measure when everywhere is hot.  We need a sea breeze. At the beach Grandad has good sandals for walking on low tide rocks; we do not, us Wild Girls, we put bare feet down on every surface, retract some, retry; then know the fullest joy in wet sand, in sea water swirling to our knees, all skirts tucked up.  (Although on the roughest terrain, to get here, Grandad’s was the best hand to hold.) The sea breeze is exactly as we had needed it.  We paddle back, drink droves of fresh water; we drive home, windows downwardly wound, the little one sleeps and sleeps. Later we go to work. The heat has seemed to dissipate. We come home, sit under stars to eat supper.  Mr says there are not as many star

First day, last month of Spring:  Even the rain seems pretty, falling to fresh leaves, caught on bright petals; a water veil draping us. Dog has been hose-piped and rain-rinsed and still a trace of spilt wine sits on her shoulders. She cares not.  The house is cold, a little in mourning - our way of life having shifted lately, with the demise of the Rayburn. One morning at 3am the carbon monoxide alarm sent its shrill noise upstairs; at a more civilised hour the chimney man came, and it couldn’t be fixed. I thought Rayburns lived forever. Alas! So now we wait for the landlord to do sums and calculate an acceptable replacement. Most likely a wood burner will arrive, fingers crossed it will have a back boiler and heat our water too. Meanwhile we have pulled the pillow draught-catcher out of the front room flue, lit the tiny open grate each evening. Meanwhile we are using an electric oven, which ought to seem more convenient - but the Rayburn was always lit,

In the way that a wedding cake, or cheese if you prefer, is a whole, of which one has a slice, this is my version, my slice of wedding. It starts well before the day, with making syrups and painting signs, but this writing will begin the night before, with Mr and me and three little granddaughters. The littlest, Grandchild 5, is teething. Grandad is sent to the sofa, so one of us will be alert enough to drive to the venue. In-between her gnashing of bumpy gums comes adorable cuddles, like she is saying thank you, and admirable wind. At 3:30am magic exhaustion kicks in.  At 6:27am Grandchildren 2 and 3 appear, complaining that they cannot sleep. Granma says: ‘Go jump on Grandad.’ 6:35am Grandchild 2 returns to complain that Grandchild 3 has snotted on the carpet, closely followed by Grandchild 3: ‘But I’ve cleaned it up, Granma!’ Granma says: ‘Go jump on Grandad.’ Grandchild 5 opens her sparkly fresh eyes. Granma says: ‘Coffee.’ Bless her, she can’t remember where

Paws and claws to the door, breathing storms In it roars, the third month of this year Daffodils bow bright manes to the King of Spring. Each unfurling - leaf, petal, tadpole - belies the windchill Warmth is washing in. What is left of our snowdrops - dotted foam of an ebbed wave By night a waxing moon was pulling up tides, and we dreamt Our feet, unshod, pressing across tawny sand

The moon is a frozen pond. It is The Snow Moon. The Hunter’s Moon. Someone says a lunar eclipse will happen this night. And a comet! We are like children with torches forecasting midnight feasts… But we slumber deep, lungs with cold air replete, minds a-wander. An early start. Wake to the sparsest spaced flakes - ten to a cubic furlong, perhaps. (Perhaps we dreamt this precise detail?) Blearish eyes are rubbed. Ahead, a deer, in no danger from ice-wary driving, springs across tarmac. From a canopy’s winter bones, an owl swoops, parallel. In a blink, a hedge bird breaks our reveries. Clips the car, sends feathers a-puff.

Without the dead ash looming, we had lost our sense of where our drive is. Each time we missed, reversed, reminded ourselves to find a stump and a grand wood pile: that’s where we live. The altered reference. We are getting used to it. Yesterday Storm Doris broke the legs of Lily Scare-the-Crow. Literally weather beaten! Was this venting frustration, now storms cannot break branches from the chopped tree? When Lily was our new scarecrow, we would reverse under precarious boughs, be startled by the  person in the rear view mirror, the flat wooden figure with the child-drawn face. Now, after remembering where we live, we are startled to not find a face. Lily has never scared a crow, nor lost her smile. She is, rakishly, propped in the lea of the lean-to. ‘What new times are these, Lily?’ I ask. ‘How will we know where we are?’ Ask your heart, she says (it’s what I hear). And I think, that’s rich, when you don’t have one: but she’s never scared a crow, nor lost her