Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

5/2/22 Saturday A leisurely start. Hold my hands around the ceramic glaze of a favourite mug, breathe in coffee steam, hear the birds caw and chitter, see the soft sky all still, all pale blue and foam.  Run a shower, let the water run warm then cold. Awake! Bags packed but not for work.  Mr has hosed the car clean, it sparkles like an iceberg.  First stop on this weekend’s adventures is to drop Dog to her stopover (with Youngest Son and Daughter-in-law, to be revered and pandered to whether she maintains continence or not). Dog does not even pretend to be sad as we leave. Next stop: Newton Abbot Leisure Centre, for black belt training (achieving a black belt is one thing, maintaining it is another). Last stop: Bristol, home of my brother, my sister-in-law, my bonkers niece. We have brought them the god-food of our homeland: Cornish Pasties, raw and oven-ready; they have the oven heated and ready. 6/2/22 Sunday Coffee, no leisurely time; clothes on, bags in car, drive to venue: Hutton

29/1/22 Saturday Sky: grey fleece on a white-gold sheep. Sea: unpolished metal. Workday: half a calming hour in the hydrotherapy pool flanked by less salubrious cleaning tasks.  Drive home: hungry. Mr toasts us a hot cross bun each, is generous with the butter. 30/1/22 Sunday Sky: mottle and marble, colours like old cutlery. Sea: graphite, lightly sketched. Someone has spilled silver ink. Workday: c louds drift, leaving wide blue space; we drive, a Sunday lazy meander with windows open.  Mr reports our new wood chipper’s debut as a success: it is orange, a very in-fashion bright orange. Stick by stick, the pile of cut hedge is getting chipped. The spring bulbs we planted are pushing up leaves, some are in bud, none open yet. 31/1/22 Monday Day begins: coffee in bed, reading up on wildflower identification (new book). Drive to work. Cloudscape is mountainous. Sea a heavier graphite than yesterday; it leaks silver ink.  At work, our care client is sick. Walk plans get scaled down to roun

22/1/22 Saturday Frostless and still, this morning. Garden stationary, like statuary. We are not: there is writing, land work, and home improvements in motion. There’s a spark, a waking up. The doomsday clock chugs, the human world sits like a frog in heating water, yet here our small world whispers hope. ‘The secret of change,’ Socrates said, ‘is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.’ Mr plans to go to the land, I will hear his tales of today when I get home. I have come to work where Saturday is hydrotherapy day, a half-hour session with the little warm salt pool to ourselves. We had a slot after the newborn class; relaxed vibe; and before a party of 8 yr olds; disco vibe.  23/1/22 Sunday Luckily I set an alarm or we might still be asleep, and after a sober night too. Blaming the cold for making our bodies hibernate. At work, a YouTube fire flickers in a stone surround: cold out, cosy in. The flat seems chilly so I put the real-life heaters on.

15/1/22 Saturday Whizzed through housework this morning, possessed with a motivation to live in a pleasant home. No frost to ogle. Sky, and sea, when I view them on my commute, are the same muted steel; one patch of cloud glows like a furnace. The hydrotherapy pool is open again so my co-worker and I load the car to take our care client, she is keen-keen-keen to get in the water. Feels tropically hot. After this, we are all hungry and relaxed. On the drive back a three-quarter moon looms in the pale sky, bobbled clouds of grey darken, rain dribbles down the windscreen like rivulets of mercury.  16/1/22 Sunday Drive to work with my new bright yellow raincoat on the front seat next to me. Sky is Wedgewood blue, clouds ripple like the low tide sand, horizon hazy-white. It is unlikely to rain but I want to wear my rubber duck coat. We take a short stroll; after which I hang my prize on the back of a chair, put a rainy day scene on YouTube, and eat a pot of tiramisu.  17/1/22 Monday A sugar

8/1/22 Saturday Arrived at work via the Hospice Charity shop donation site, having made a push to clear space in the home office/storage room. This is part of our tussle to become tiny-house-ready, therefore it counts as land journey progress.  I showered this morning and, wary of cold creeping in, had my wet hair shoved inside a woolly hat; glad of the warmth as I was dashing through rain to gift a pile of picture frames.  At work: Outside the rain is sloshing. We can hear some sort of banshee wind. Dark drops suddenly. I’ve let my hair down, it’s still damp. I ate the last leftover Xmas satsuma and made tea from the peel. I’ve checked moon cycles for the best pruning dates.  I’ve ordered myself a superb raincoat and it’s out of stock. 9/1/22 Sunday Zipped to work hopeful of collecting driftwood on the way down but time and weather gently gathered into a Not-Today. On the way home I notice the absence of Xmas lights- usually someone forgets- and think fondly of how the inflatable San

1/1/22 Saturday Last night just before midnight, Mr & I strolled down the dark lane, wine glasses in hand; spotted constellations, watched distant fireworks. This morning Dog had done several splats of foulness on the living room carpet. HNY! Also this morning: In bed, chinking coffee cups, we say- what will this year bring? We hope it’s a track and a toilet shed. On the way to work, I stop for a walk at Carlyon Bay. Far from frosts, a warmish wind blows, the sea is a stirred milky blue, the air damp. At work, I eat chocolate and mince pies and a bag of spinach.  2/1/22 Sunday 5am: Dog does dusty poop in the kitchen. Mr rises and mops. 7am: Dog arrives in our bedroom, she’s not sure why. I rise, briefly, relocating my snooze to the recliner chair while she settles on the sofa. 8am: coffee in bed, reading gardening books.  Not looking at the clock: walk before work, around the lanes in the unseasonably warm grey fuzzy air. No snowdrops to be seen, only the plucky wild strawberries t