Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

6am. Grandchild 3 stirs me from disturbed sleep - fleeing snores and soothing a toddler and a jumbled dream about my dog trying to wake up because she wants a coffee - with this sentence: ‘Granma, Dog’s done a poo in the kitchen, a really big one!’ Explains the dream. I say not to worry, I’ll clean it up - does Mummy keep cleaning things under the sink? Yes, says my observant side kick, and opens a drawer to fetch me a dust cloth. I do not use the duster. ‘I think there’s another bit here,’ G3 advises. ‘Might just be a bit of ordinary dirt,’ I say, but she’s stuck her toe in it, so, yes, it was poop. Toe and floor are disinfected. I make coffee, strong coffee. Dog lies in corner, affects an apologetic face. G3, unaffected, eats two breakfasts before her sister shouts to be fetched. She’s beaming in her cot, our Grandchild 5, framed in curls, holding up her arms. She’s also sticky. Too late, Granma! Straight to the shower, G5, never mind the glower. That

The Crow Road Iain Banks 1992 Mostly I'm behind the times on reading, because my books are most often purchased via the 50 pence box of our local secondhand bookstore. This one was loaned to me though. The nice thing about reading old books is if there was a fuss about it at the time, I will have forgotten, and read open minded. I had no idea this was any kind of detective novel when I began, it only occurred to me afterwards that there was a mystery to solve. I was caught up in the main character, and the fun of it. It is peppered with death, but warm hearted, and I loved the landscapes. The change in narrator from Prentice to his father, the moving time line, these made the reading a little fragmented but never disagreeable. 'It was the day my Grandmother exploded' is an engaging first sentence, and it held my attention throughout. I'm terrible at summing up plots so I stole the following from Wikipedia, for those who might need more info: 'Prentice

Read my To Do list - threw it on the fire.  Put on my red coat.  Found two dry oak leaves in a pocket -  catch a falling leaf, get a wish, I remembered, so I put them on the fire too, to let the wishes be free.  And walked back to where that tree stood bare, and further through the woods.  I found treasures, such as stacks and globs of fungus growing in turned up roots - that tree too I knew - before it fell, recalling how its roots were snaky and caught at our feet.  I found the drowned quarry blooming with algae like some suspect cauldron, stirred with weeping branches. Heard the wind above singing in a language I recognised but could not translate. Rested briefly at my favourite bench, a felled tree this one, left jutting over the river.  Strolled to where the river has a beach, storm strewn in flat stones; the wind chill too much for an unplanned swim by an un-furred creature.  At my feet, two heart shaped stones. Puddles have skins of ic

When you work as a carer and your shifts become palliative, the outcome is obvious. There’s a tumble of variables around how you feel about this: how your relationship was with this other human, were they suffering, and suchlike. There is a need to maintain professional distance, yet be truthful with yourself. There are endings. There are last meetings of friends and family. Hard to envision a life shared without tears, regrets, hilarious remembrances. The most complicated things can become simple - the simplest gesture, a kaleidoscope of references. You look back too and see, that trip out turned out to be the last. The last time the favourite top was worn, the last time we watched the favourite film. But that glance back is not sad, exactly. Because of your work, something wonderful happened. And kept happening. A luminosity. When death came - it was as though an artist had signed a fine portrait. How lucky we were, to be part of that. To witness so readily t

Under the blurred waxing of a blood moon, we are frowning, getting pestered with details, nothing so vital, just needing attention, but there’s not enough sleep for this nonsense. Metaphorically one cannot step without finding a splinter in a sole, a bee in one’s hair, and the phone ringing and the hob on fire, and there’s no coffee. There will be peace and quiet though, under that mess. I will find it.  Might need help. So I will meditate, I will take a guided meditation - I have a list and choose this one: Guidance From A Future Self. She will know about the mess and the peace. So I am walking barefoot without splinters or thistles in an imaginary, familiar place, smelling warm salt air, fresh cut grass, to a bench where Future Me sits. I can’t see her clearly, she’s hazy, I like her presence, it seems wise. How will I get to where you are? Is my question. I don’t exist, she says, I only exist depending on what you do. I can’t help, it’s on you. What?

Hot Flashes & Cold Lemonade Firstly - sorry for the late posting. Undertook 5 hours of sparring to raise money for a UK charity that helps prevent young suicide, we think we’ve raised over £2000 which is ten times what we expected, and I also entirely underestimated the toll on my arms. Made it through the week but not much typing happened! And if that wasn’t a good enough excuse, my care shifts have changed to waking nights. Good for your creativity, to be tired, apparently, as it unhitches your mind and lets things connect freely. It is not good for sentence structure or attention to punctuation so I’ll stick a secondary apology here in case none of the following makes sense. The book I am reviewing is Hot Flashes & Cold Lemonade by Susan Flett Swiderski. It’s a first novel, self published, but not an entirely wild gamble. I have been reading Susan’s blog for eons, it’s a welcoming, humorous place to go, pretty sure every comment gets a response, and I really appre

Our matriarch, the impish Granma Grace, has not had the best of times, of late. A succession of hospital stays, a succession of strokes and falls - it has taken its toll on us all. My sister-in-law has given up her job to care for her mother, and keep her cosy in her own home where she wants to stay. Mr takes over once a week to ease his sister’s work, and to spend time with the lady who has done so much for her children and her grandchildren and still won’t stop apologising that she can’t cook us all a feast these days. ‘I’d give up,’ she sighs, ‘but I’m too nosy, I want to see how everyone turns out!’ This is a good sentence. She gets her words muddled, especially when tired, and some of them come out unintentionally inappropriate, some fantastically creative, burbling like a hillside brook, clear in meaning to us - because we know this scenery, this beautiful bonkers place of Grace. We even pick up words. Paramacetameter is good for headaches, did you know? Or Cer

A peek back at the void between Christmas and New Year.  We filled it with grandchildren (and work, which is sort of cheating).  Managed to corral four of the little Gs for Granma’s instantly regretted plan.  ‘Let’s go ice skating,’ she says, ‘at the Eden Project!’  It’s sparkly magic there and that has made Granma overlook her mortal fear of ice. (Once there was an accident: head… crunch… she still hears the echo.) But sparkly magic is strong, she tells herself. Grandad rubs his knees to comfort them.  Oh, but look at those four sparkly magic faces!  Pretending altruism, Granma also pays for Uncle E to attend - Uncle E who can actually skate.  (He isn’t fooled. He is bribed.) ‘You don’t have to skate, if you don’t want to.’ Granma says 1000 times, to each  little  G, forgetting that a lack of pressure will compel. So she has to queue for skates, give up the welly boots, mince onto the ice. Grandchild 1 is eight years minus one week; skating a

  One A5 silver diary has been the recipient of the many lists and appointments and events this last year. Everyday I have noted a moment that made that day particular to itself, a mindfulness exercise. Reading them through revealed a sort of diary poem so I applied some editing and here it is:  January Trees sing like whales in high wind. Cold bright day, looked at the sea, ate fish. Ate too much sugar, structured a poem. First snowdrops seen. What I thought a lupin turns out to be a hellebore. Slept beautifically. February Storm Doris, bins akimbo! Rescued scarecrow. So many rainbows it's raining rainbows! Stabbed in thumb by hawthorn. Dog had toast and sausage. Saw deer bound through sparse snowflakes.  New Storm Doris blows over hellebore. Did all my Tae Kwon-Do patterns and hid biscuit tin. Watched hailstones bounce off camellia leaves. Pancakes! March Brown patch on sock does turn out to be coffee.  Stuck in

Titania's Curious Other Life ‘It’s been this way for… I don’t remember… Like I’ve just been born out of this… box? It isn’t an actual box, of course. It’s a room.  A room in my mind. Location regardless, I’m trapped in it.  Here I am trapped. In a room. In my mind. It doesn’t matter how much those idiots say oh, get dressed up, go out - I can’t! They can’t see that I’m trapped. Because it’s in my mind. Not their minds, they don’t have any. They are just tin, hollow tin. They don’t even want to go out, they just wait for orders.  Being stupid makes them content, they are boxed up, lined up, they can’t see life should be anything else.’ Titania sighs. She has given her monologue to a row of cardboard angels, and gets blank smiles in return. ‘Not hiding. Trapped.’ It is hard for them to understand, she knows, but she wishes they would make more of an effort. They look at her as though she were a shy child hiding behind a sofa.