Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

The ear infection morphed; became a mufflement of the outer world. A sense of chrysalis held: gentle, un-claustrophobic, welcome.  I had gone to the beach and seen the low sun reach rich orange across the sea till it churned in foam, tumbled at my feet. I had swum and felt the water lift me. Mr and I had been buying, just lately - proper, from a vendor, consumerist buying - things to make our lives heavenly, like changing robes to keep us warm should we swim into the winter months, like a chrome book for writing while in transit (literally, in a Ford Transit). Stuff we will appreciate, use to pieces - but previously would have been determined to forego.  Are we greedy? Are we hypocrites now?  I had been pushing myself, thinking that I must push myself, deeply engaged with the analogy of caterpillar becoming butterfly - a caterpillar will become a butterfly, it will happen - just as our lives will unfold to fullness when we get our bit of land and can be putting int

These hot days steam by. They desiccate. Grass is pale, brittle, like old parchment. Everything without shade is crotchety, dust, fetid, or sheltering in water. I have been all of these, and the last three days each a long shift with bare respite. And my ears become stoppered with infection. This hot world becomes silent.  Bees move flower to flower, birds turn, open beaks, there are leaves twitching, soundless. Did this air on skin always feel like a tumble of morning petals? Um, yes. And the smell of the warming earth under dew, yes, that has ever been my treasure.  But having a sense impaired, also yes, the focus on what is left is re-treasured; the sense of moment blooms, re-blooms.  Meditative appreciation, under-grumbled with intermittent pain.  As some people get tattooed for decorative reasons but some require each etch to bear meaning - I am in need of learning from every ailment. (I try to just be ill sometimes, not much success.) The outside w

On the longest day: rise early, missing sleep. Drive towards the risen sun, sunglasses perched. Across the cobbles of Exeter Quay snick-snicks an urban fox, slips quick paced under cover of scratchy shrubs.  At the home of Granma Grace, an ambulance is summoned (spoiler alert: this turns out okay). Paramedics Julia and Maria are asking us about end of life care: revive, we say, the quality of life is diminishing, the interest in it not piqued at all. At the hospital, our Grace is so lovely everyone must be lovely by return. She brings the sparkle.  A doctor brings her toast with maramalade, both paramedics pop in to see how she’s doing. We’re home in time to broil chicken for her lunch, she’s having a good food day.  (Angina medication to be revised.) Back home there’s Grandchild 2 picking strawberries, she tells me a whale’s tongue weighs as much as an elephant. A cold wind whips up around us, a lovely respite. We head for Bude, for two hot hours of tra

At the house of Granma Grace artefacts line each shelf.  There's a lady in a yellow dress, she's been waltzing for years – decades – caught in a turn, petticoats fixed in a spin - she looks to her absent partner.  There's a lady in festive red, and three more china beauties above dressed for spring, delicate, all looking to an absent return of gaze.  On the room's highest shelf a china couple are fixed, blue and white, a dab of yellow, an accordion on his lap, they both look ahead. Toby jugs flank them, one has a roughly groomed beard.  Below, in her adjustable chair, Granma nods her head in sleep.  Myself, sat on the sofa adjacent, I would not pick out her life in figurines. I would think of a tablecloth - something just as pretty with cotton lace, with embroidered flowers, with variable shades of white where food stains had been scrubbed out, where one of us had spilt ketchup, another had splashed wine.  Today I heated her breakfast milk, sh

I am listening - by which I mean absorbing - by which I mean I am becoming part of this - as though easing into the sea, arms and legs afloat, just drifting. I am tired.  Last night I was tired - but the evening air was so refreshing and my garden was there in the magic dusk, glowing with iris and rose and dots of closing day flowers and the bath-pond so little yet in its stillness infinite deep and I grew to be awake, alive, embracing.  Then it was midnight so I took a glass of dark wine to let sleep find me. Indoors was hot, I opened a window wide, then sleep did find me though twas all tumbled up, as though I had slept in storm waves.  Then it was birds shrieking, singing, it was 4.55am, sleep had fled, untraceable.  Pulled on garden clothes, went out to pour water on plants, ready for a hot day. I knew I would be at work, missing out, glad for bills paid, longing for my own land and no alarm clocks - the birds can wake me and I will find naps in hammocks, I w

Granddaughters (aged 4, aged 6) in my hammock, reading a joke book. “Why did the chicken cross the road, roll in the dirt and cross back again? Because it was a dirty double crosser!” Grandchild 5 (aged 1) has a hot-tired-left-out grump going on so I scoop her up, the whole squishy chunk of her, and she snuggles her head to my shoulder. Plan: put blanket in the other hammock, to cover the bump of the knot work, to make a cozy nest. Problem with plan: forgetting this sling of string has been left out all winter and is likely to be perilously frayed. We fell through it.  I hit the metal frame, G5 bounced unharmed off my ribcage, runs off wailing. The six year old retrieves her as Granma is caught in the net. (Soft tissue soreness, wrenched, crunched, dignity obliterated, nothing serious.) Granddaughters (aged 4, aged 6) have found their favourite joke of the afternoon: “You fell through the hammock, Granma! You were stuck!” Granma rather likes the

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