Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Rain today, two main kinds. Heavy: each drop has a discernible weight, the drops are close together. Light: the water barely felt. Drops fall sparsely and, where acknowledged, are perceived as a change in temperature as they touch the skin. Until you are wet the air is warm, a summer vestige. Leaves burnish, fruit drops. Blight flourishes - we watch for it, harvest, cut back, holding onto bounty; basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, physalis, aubergines, samphire. This year the lime tree has not blossomed, it may need a new pot. We’re ticking over here, though, not rushing to mend. Make do will do. Our minds champ to be on the land we will buy. Patience, the rain says. It brings the word from the sky, from the sea, from millennia of water cycles. Uh-huh, we say. We can breathe this day’s air, watch our crops, brew and chop and fill the freezer. We are here in this moment but can’t stop the fear or the thrill or the gnashing of ideas - the future that is coming, we want to meet ...

If the storm had a body, this was one jab from one fingertip, no more; elsewhere the hurricanes tore, here the road was lost under mulch, here light branches fell. We felt the roar, the joyous power, we were safe in our home. In the morning the sun rose, an orange fire caught in grey cloud, sparks that lit tree tops - copper and iron. Images of a weather god, hammer swinging, forging - a ploughshare, I think. To turn over earth and plant a green crop, to keep our soil safe through winter. Day and night draw even. Nights will start to stretch. We must think of winter stores; hunkering down, shoring up. I feel like we will have enough, we will get the work done. Often when contentment loomed I had feared it. It seemed a dulling of my senses, of this edge to edge living. This time I am plumping cushions, setting the wood burner. And yes the house is full of boxes and bottles and things to be done, we have not reached the still point of cosy - but I am ready to be comfortab...

September, mid afternoon; we hear the constant fluctuation of wasps in the willow arch, hungry and heedless of the hornets that are raiding wasp-grubs. Leaves are drying, edging into new colour, whispering. Indoors, every hour is backgrounded in blips. Apple wine, timing its own fermentation, a liquid metronome. September, first autumn month, the ninth month, the evening: against the dark, logs crackle fierce in the fire pit. Wine sloshes into glasses; a soothing mesmer made. Eyes droop. We stoop to bed hearing ourselves list jobs to be done, plans that slide into dreams of us on our land, and there is music playing and we are laughing (but this is us snoring, by now.) September dawn, birds’ chorus bursting bright. Later in the morning, coffee softly drops into a pot.

Summer signs out on the calendar, maybe distractedly: it leaves a trail of warm days. In these days we can find a body of water appealing, strip impromptu, dip and swim; strike out limbs, put trepidous feet into murk, thrilled by the press of weed. We can be merfolk, pirates, explorers, in our storied dialogues; jumping from rocks, invading an island of boggy grass. Then we put coats on, walk brisk, eat a pot of good olives. We can run down a beach into shallow waves for miles, till the dog gets tired and swims back. We can slither back through rock pools, joining a gull tribe. Hear the kittiwake's call. Days are busy busy - too much needs doing - but nothing more than this. Out of the water when we are wet and the breeze finds us we recall that summer has signed out, that we are in the remnants. Clothed again skin has a buzz of circulation, a flush of warmth.

There’s a geography of warmth - the land and water holding a summer range - there’s winter in the edge of the wind. We go walking where traffic from copper and tin once rolled. Old mines tumbled in, and a sort of emptiness ringing. Barb wire keeps us from the mined earth. Strange holes underneath, gored rock, and the steep hills are made of innards dug and dumped. I have a shiver of nostalgia for the people that braved this, a repulsion for the scarring. Above this lonely place is the last of the summer sky. Under foot wildflowers and grasses take hold, fat with sun, bold, healing. Water rushes out of sight, beyond the wire. Dragonflies are in the trees, in and out the willow leaves, they draw our amazement for skill and colour. Sun on skin. Ice in the breeze. Blackberries weighty clumps - not too sweet, just right - stain fingers purple. Summer is bowing out, just right.

So after the ear infection cleared up the shoulder injury happened – I don’t know how, might be tendonitis, but that was almost under control and then plantar fasciitis (painful foot thing) made an appearance and then the shoulder thing came back worse and the pain robbed my sleep and everything is a disaster without the respite of sleep. Yes, undeniably, this was the scenario. Yet also one does not wish to be defeated by this, it’s one layer of reality only. Reasons to be cheerful is a nice long list too. Family, friends, garden, van, beach, moors, rivers, woods, an actual sunny summer!  So I was tired when I drove to Bristol, had to stop at Taunton Deane services to attempt a power nap; compromised with a fresh walk and a punch of coffee. Finding Temple Gate car park took an additional travel round a busy block, but I made it, I met my friend Jen and sometime over the last 27 years her hugging skills have improved. Jen loves an itinerary so we we...