Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

I am in the hammock, resting. Dog’s important work, about which she is so enthusiastic, is to spit bits of mulch into my wineglass.  My arms vibrate from the catch-up of strimming hedges and edges - how the wild sidles up, mouth open, ready to swallow us whole! Tenacity to admire, and good to be sure that if we take flight things will grow. Our wilderness is fertile.  Because of storms I had shifted my hammock stand chandelier to the shelter of a tree. It suits that space as much, dangling crystal foliage.  Hard green pods appear on fruit trees - all but the pear, nursed back from a near fatal fireblight, but that is in full leaf. To be at peace here one must embrace the noise of birds, for they can’t all sing.  A wind whips flame; across the fire pit a twisted log crouches, salamander-esque.  Fat gnat-ish things fly. The swifts will be in flight soon to gobble them up.  I am in the hammock, resting.  Hedges and edges neat enough. Beans planted out.

Summer must be sliding in behind us, slowly turning up the dial.  Primroses over-bloom, droop, even the bluebells are heavy.  Elderflower buds besieged by black-fly.  The lawn cut one minute and replacing every daisy head, every pimpernel, every dandelion with great sleight of hand.  Bees are in on it, prepared.  I am running for the hosepipe, feeling hypnotised. Azalea pink, chive flower purple, the fine stripes on citrine gooseberries - such awe is struck, such spectacle, such skill.  Take an interval in the hammock, the silky hot hammock, too hot for a blanket this time - see how it is as though one could take a butterknife and slice through anything - until the breeze comes, draws across, makes a cooled crust.

Last night, as I was leaving work, fingers of mist reached from the moors to snatch the road; and the road was almost lost. It became a ghost trail,  yet  still led home.  The sky was a void, backlit by an unseen half-moon. I had seen moon and sky clearly by day.  In the garden our van glimmers, by the light from an open door. Mr notes that the outside bulb needs replacing.  In the van, he says, the insulation is all in place.  He has some dust in his hair. He looks up. Dog is round my feet, her tail knocking at the bags I’m dragging.  Oh, says Mr, we won’t be seeing any meteoroid showers tonight! It’s good to be home, post-heat, post-work, pull on pyjamas, put feet on couch.  Turn on the projector, we can watch the sky from here.  Well, I can. Mr and Dog are fast sleep. I have a glass of nettle wine. I’m watching tigers hunt. I’m watching the sleepers smile.  Day view of the van, insulation installation in progress - easily as shiny

Air temperature rose and fell. People are reading this like runes. What joy, what doom awaits? I am not speculating, only trying to work out when best to catch up on late planting.  The polytunnel is a steamy breathing earthy space. Seed trays are incubating.  Peek repeatedly under repurposed plastic and crockery hoping for that poke of green.  There’s one self seeded tomato - how smug it stands in the scatter of egg shells, though the nasturtiums tumble around a hundred times bigger.  Lime shoots pee-oww from every crack of bark; we made soda from the first batch, it has a fresh-bitter bite.  Dandelions are strong and fast - from their flowers I made a mock-honey. No wonder the bees love these florets! Today in the dampness I felt that the earth was holding warmth, and pressed boot soles into soft clay-mud around the empty horse field - while Dog snuck off to feast on things unknown, hiding in the rising crops, sheepish in recall, wolfish in lip

I get in the van, wiggle the driver’s seat - because today I am the driver. I check, I can reach the pedals. Note: headlight controller here, wipers there, horn may be employed by a palm strike, brake is the one in the middle - it is very much like a car, only longer and higher. And all we are doing is rolling merrily down the A30 to visit family, no stress of punctuality, no test to be passed.  Emerge from drive, take the corner, no troubles.  Take deep breath: it’s only a dual carriageway, not even a motorway, and there’s nothing exactly to be nervous of, not when you address the vagary. Tis only new, tis only the healthy worry of stepping into a new phase, of becoming Van Driving Me.  Admittedly, when the window trim came swiftly loose and smacked the side window I was unnerved. But after we stopped and checked and it would not pull free, and we fixed it back with electric tape (all that was available) it was bearable. It might come loose again but would not be fl

            Mr, having reduced his salt intake and increased his exercise regime, has gained some attacks of debilitating cramp.  Nocturnal cramp. A midnight that bites. Pained, not entirely wakeful, he spirals down our stairs to stretch it out - misses the bottom step, crashes into the oven, knocks a crock of fruit tea over the kitchen floor, breaks the crock, the best beloved iron pot that his Mum gave him, that I make all my syrups in, that we use every day, for everything. Mr has sadness, cramps, and a bruised knee. We throw bath towels to the floor, soaking up spilt tea.  Put the broken pot back on the hob.  Accident? Omen? We try to sleep and find it difficult. Somewhere upwards of our bed the moon is waning. Early morning mist and frost we see: we too are bleary, we too are cold. Coffee must brew. It is slow, but the sun strengthens.  Washing pegged to line. Wind blows fresh, not cold.  Dog shares our restlessness so we go down to a f

I am scared.  We have worked hard and scrimped and saved and now we’re spending the money. Like a magic trick: pouff!! It will be gone. Now we pray to the Universe that we are not mistaken. We open our eyes wide to see the curviness of the learning ahead. Those are some hourglass figures! We have paid the deposit, made the necessary investigations concerning insurance, and the specific details of conversions.  A long wheel base Ford Transit ex-fleet highway maintenance van stands on a forecourt with a SOLD sign. It has a head dent and it smells of a diesel spill. It has a chem-loo which you’ll thank me for not describing. Low mileage, service history in full. Fair price. Is this really happening?  I’m lurching into this experience like a learner driver kangarooing their clutch control. It seems that we have bought a van, yes.  The man who puts windows in is about to be booked. From collection we have 90 days to convert it to

Blue Sludge Blues & Other Abominations by Shannon Lawrence Release Date: March 15, 2018 Horror short story collection A collection of frights, from the psychological to the monstrous. These tales are a reminder of how much we have to fear: A creature lurking in the blue, sludgy depths of a rest area toilet; a friendly neighbor with a dark secret hidden in his basement; a woman with nothing more to lose hellbent on vengeance; a hike gone terribly wrong for three friends; a man cursed to clean up the bodies left behind by an inhuman force. These and other stories prowl the pages of this short story collection. Excerpt From Maelstrom : "As I sit listening to the crash of waves outside my hotel window, the fan tap-tapping away above my head, I wait for it to come for me." Buy the Book Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Amazon Australia | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo Also available from Apple and other countries t

The lying was done. We had a surprise party, as suspected. That surprise, during which the weather was exceptional sunshine, meant Mr would not suspect further. So, confused but knowing family life can be confusing, he arrived at the address in Jacobstow prepared to babysit. But we had blithely lied. We had Friday night fajitas instead, with moderate beers, and the tired children (fed earlier) had moderate tears, and the grownups fell asleep in chairs. Saturday we mustered to Widemouth Bay, to walk on the beach with teeny whirls of snow. It was bound to happen, so Grandchild 3 fell in a pool to fill up her boots and go back to the car to shiver. Grandchild 4 opened bare hands, bright pink, showing his collection - sea snails, he said, and helmet crabs - they don’t have their own houses, they wear other shells like hats, he said, that’s helmet crabs. Grandchild 1 was feral on rocks. Grandchild 5 cried, we guessed she was cold. On the way back to warmth we took a wrong tu

(Friday was quiet... Saturday had a surprise birthday barbecue in it.) Granma (aka Mummy) Grace in her wheelchair, layered in coat, hat, scarf, gloves, mittens, light filtering glasses and blanket; she grins, showing a gap, proving over and over that real beauty and perfection are not the same. Mr does the chair pushing, to the Post Office on Cowick Street, and joins a queue. It is sixty years to the day since our Grace had waddled up the snow littered street to fetch the midwife and the midwife said you’ve got one coming have you, well pop home and put the kettle on, I’ll be down in a bit. Grace laughs: yes, she says, it was snowing. Dog and me wander, she is nose to ground, head full of information she gleans from urine. (A little collie greets her, but she’s barely distracted, chasing a story peed into brick.) Drizzle hovers. The wind is pushing it down the neck of my coat. It sticks in my hair. Then Mr takes Dog, and I take Grace, and she balances a basket

Frozen old snow-bones gather in the shade, slanted lumps in whites and greys. (Think of Mae West: I used to be Snow White - but I drifted.) Sun at midday reminds us of heat.  The night sky is brittle, clear, the stars can be seen here, where the dark is let be. Mornings bloom frost, and also flowers, tender flowers reviving. Bees wake. They fly like they have winter aches, holding out legs in the noon warmth. Down at the beach there is snow hiding under sand, and cliff icicles, and melt water flowing, tugging at our boots, tumbling, all the way to the low tide edge.

‘In like a lion, out like a lamb’ is the weather saying for March, the roar of the lion being usually equated with storms. We have snow. Kittenish at first, growing pouncier and slicier, as the roads get icier. Red weather warnings flagged all over, venues shut, shops shut, schools shut. Here, as the wind chill gets dangerous, we layer up, we take a walk - a sensible, across some fields amble, not a survival route. We are hoping that a walk out will be brisk and keep our circulation functional. With both fires lit, the house is not warm. The bathroom is like outdoors, less the wind chill, plus a strong draft. I always claim to like the outdoor nature of our bathroom, it keeps you connected to the seasons, to the weather. I do like that - yet also wary of being frozen to the toilet seat. Snow flurries, evenly spaced, pleasing to the eye, all the air filled with this pretty dance. Down the lane we make first footprints. Dog looks grubby in the pristine drift. T

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