Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Wednesday: A heat mist over the fields this morning calls up a favourite description from the diaries of Admiral Yi Sun Sin: the earth as a scalding pot of soup. On this steaming day, sweeping and cleaning and the last of the indoor clearing is done. We are prepared to hand over the keys of Rosehill, our former abode. I write ‘prepared’ as old Farmer Landlord is unlikely to be where he says when he says. And the moving saga isn’t over until the fruit bushes are brought to the long garden space at Number Three. And the telegraph pole. My car holds gallons, gallons and more gallons of wine in many shapes of flagon, and a chainsaw, and a galvanised bin. Carefully driven around corners. Reversed clumsily from heat of driveway to shade of shed. No one wants to work, we are too busy melting. Mr drives the hot road to Plymouth. I flop in the passenger seat, hypnotised by the half popped bubble of moon. As the road cools, the moon thickens. On the home stretch, I see clearly...

Sunday : Stumped by the internet, a repetition of which we are quite bored. Metaphorically, head meets wall. Head meets wall again. Head aches. Wall remains incommunicative. Sunshine bakes our wearied faces as we shift more loads to the tip. Each fling and release of bin sack, broken box, bit of unmendable thing into the regrettable landfill, each ditch of a reusable item to the recyclable container, takes some stress with it. On the home journey, wind the car windows down, watch Dog’s ears cavort in the air current. At home, eat pudding outside. Home-grown raspberries. Fat trunked ash tree reaches into the blue. Sparrows fetch their fledglings supper. Monday: The internet we do not speak of. The heat is mentioned. The car is loaded, unloaded, grime builds an underlayer, a slime between skin and cotton, it smells like earthy hard work. These are the last days of toil; this is mentioned. Tuesday: Charging up for a sprint finish. When I was a child we seemed to move house...

Thursday: A short trip to the tip before the welcome diversion of work. Friday: Long trips to the tip, scooping out a clear floor in Girl’s garage. Long trips to fill it up again with items to puzzle over later. Mostly glass jars for brewing. Long does not denote distance here but effort. My fingers are porcupined with flakes of rusted metal. Saturday: Discover that the sofa will dent the ceiling of the entrance hallway but not fit into the house. Sofa is sent to the holding pen of Girl’s garage. Returning to Number Three I forget to put the latch on. Mr shuts the front and only door. Mr climbs in through the window to let us back in again. We have hired, used, returned the nifty van. My objective for the day’s end was to be sat on our sofa: I had not envisioned sitting in a garage looking at all the other stuff that doesn’t fit. Sorry says Mr, for his measuring had proven fallible. We both sigh. At the old house, trundling dusty things into collecting points- here for t...

A little bit of sharing; this project has been going on in the background for a while. About time I cracked on with it! Fairly happy with it up to verse 462, only another 538 to go.  One Thousand Miracles In One Day (The first ten verses, first edit.)     Down the wall a spider walks Unseen, the whisper of eight feet Unheard on the wallpaper, this is A secret world, a spider’s world     At the zero hour it seems nothing exists But the deep breathing of sleep And the heaving of wind in darkness Bowing trees as though dragons fly here Uncounted leaves stream, pulling On thin stems, twisting loose, one leaf Takes hold of the air, it has no plans For landing, that will just happen Droplets absorb night, outside Dark rain falls, clouds Thicken sky, at the deepest Point of our dreaming sleep Too far above to permeate sleep An aeroplane passes, full of journeys Full of stories we will not hear, the trave...

Monday: I can’t remember what happens on Monday; by Tuesday it has gone. I’m not sure how that happened. Evidence suggests overseeing the migration of cardboard boxes. Tuesday: A knock on the door is my neighbour, excitedly gesticulating, asking if we are missing a ferret. I think about it. No, we don’t have a ferret. Cat has learnt to use the cat flap, Dog compulsively flushes birds out of crop fields, Rabbit likes to sit in the under space of his hutch and watch the green lawn world. There is not a ferret missing from this scene. Later in the day, as I am waiting in the road while a breakdown flatbed winches a silver car to the curb, my neighbour passes. They took the ferret to the vet, I learn. It’s a baby. I update Mr on the story and he trumps me by suspecting a cuckoo, having found a fledgling dead upon the ground under the sparrow nest. Wednesday: Been working, while estranged from the www. All this house moving malarkey also interrupts my access to concentrat...

Thursday : After so much rain, the clouds lay flat out, from corner to corner of a washed out sky. Tyres in swathes of water spray out wings either side of every car. We travel, a line of neckless swans, on the dark wet road, wondering where the summer is hiding. Everyone sighs. Back at the old house, clothes flopping in the tumble dryer, I heat a kettle on a blue gas flame till it whistles. Make hot chocolate, a mugful. Friday : I am trying to set the router up. At this point I a person who does not care about weather, or chocolate. Boy is brave enough to help. Mr says he loves me. I say I will love everyone when the internet works. The instructions for accessing the connection are on an email. Which I can’t access. It is time to walk away from all things electrical, taking deep breaths. It’s only another little tribulation, on a sense of scale distorted by frustration. Baby gleams, playing hide and seek under a duvet. She wears a toilet roll inner tube as a bracelet. ...

Not having money is on us like a clamp, uncomfortable, unwelcome. Mr has made a kitchen lampshade from a colander, clever chap. We have remeasured both the sofa and the space it has to be dexterously persuaded into the house; it doesn’t seem workable but the maths say otherwise. The sofa is the only thing we decidedly can’t strap to the car, there must be van hire. The expense of van hire is broachable; a sofa exchange takes time to organize, and, besides, we like the one we’ve got. It represents welcome comfort. It articulates to me, this is exactly how you were: uncertain that you could fit in here; that this house and this life would meld. It further reveals, this is how you can be: a little squeezed for space, a bit scuffed from the journey, but settled, rested, raring for subsequent escapade. 

['Printing isn't quite as mechanical as people think. The people who take a little more time with machines print something better... There is love and craft in it, which means that a person with a better heart can do it better.' David Hockney.] Yesterday: Pick Up The List By the clang of the plumber’s spanner and the lightness of his humming, it is not too crazy to believe the burst pipe joint can be mended. Dare I hope that the whining pitch of the singing toilet also be soothed? I think about this, then dismiss my feelings; it will happen or not happen, hope and worry have no part in play here. I make mugs of tea and prepare to mop. Meanwhile Dog runs out, chases her ball the long length of the garden. The air is the kind of damp which can gather in raindrops or disperse into heat. The nextdoor chickens are slow clucking. The nextdoor chickens are great fence breechers: consequently chicken wrangling is a new hobby of ours. Tasks and chores for the day li...

Posting in haste, while the connection is working! Playing catch up is driving me bananas- why are bananas the crazy analogy fruit?  July 6, 2012 The Rabbit, the Wizard and the Bed Base. Yesterday’s highlight was beheld on the return visit from collecting a rabbit hutch. This in itself contained the excitement of the hutch being bigger than the space in the car, and having great faith in the strength of string. As I guided my vehicle gently to a roundabout, waiting to cross the road was a man in navy blue wizard robes, long hair wafting wisely in communion with a soft breeze, staff in hand and stout leather sandals on feet. Today we strapped the bed base to the top of my car with binder twine and reef knots. If an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered, getting the bed base up the spiralled stairwell was definitely an adventure. Especially the part where, in spite of removing some banister rail and carpet, the puzzlesome chunk became firmly wedged. I was...

Despite my intermittent access to blogtime recently, a triple whammy of awards has accumulated. I hope to accept them all without doing too much work (which laziness I can thankfully blame on a protracted house moving experience) or compromising humility. Thank you very much for sharing these with me, Unikorna and Carolyn, you are both most splendidly generous and appreciated. Please find them here: http://unikorna.blogspot.com/ http://franklycreative.blogspot.com/ Two of my cache come from Unikorna: "The Fabulous Blog Ribbon" and the "Lovely Blog Award". Both awards require an honorable mention of the one who bestowed the award, followed by 7 nominations of bloggers suitable for the distinction. The Fabulous Blog Ribbon also compels to disclose 5 fabulous moments of your life. And for the Liebster Award from Carolyn: The rules: 1. Each person must post 10 facts about themselves 2. Answer 10 questions the tagger has g...

Lost in a crowd of thorns and stings, a rose pined for the sun. Last year I chopped the competition down: the sweet pink flowers hurled open unshadowed petals in clear day. I plucked blooms at leisure then, with red and white beads of blood and stung weals striping my arms. This year the path I hacked is grown in, but the stems of rose still reach higher. Before I can really work out why, here I am, diving through the nettles and the brambles, pulling secateurs from my pocket, snipping every stem I can reach, armfuls of fragrant pink, the hooked spikes catching in my sleeves. This bounty is brought to my new, unprepared kitchen, a selection of mugs and old bottles stand in for vases. As each flower drops, the petals are stuffed in a teapot for fresh rose tea. Only the buds are left now, snakelike heads: Medusa’s wedding hair. I’m thinking I might dry them, preserve some rose tea for winter time. Then I will sit in the short day, laughing at the impetuous dive. If I wanted to, I cou...

Scrawling compulsively everyday, not enough time to tweak and primp these words, but I've grown accustomed to sharing and these are busy house moving days- this is like me saying, here, step over the cardboard boxes and let's drink coffee out of plastic wine glasses.  June 29, 2012 Unfinished Family Day. After lunch, two dead palm trees are cut down. Baby sits naked in a bowl of pasta. Dog runs her rope around the bench and any other available legs. Boy is up the tree, bow-saw brandishing. Grampa Jim directs. There are pak choi flowers in the salad- edible flowers, my best kind. Scattered family gathers, comfortable on a selection of garden furniture, the six year gap is nothing. June 30 th 2012 Unfinished Family Wedding Day. Children we have seen brand new to the world; crumpled, tiny; they surprise us: hand us their children; walk down aisles in beautiful costumes; grow taller than us. Cousins at play on the bouncy castle here, while we say, o...