Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

  One A5 silver diary has been the recipient of the many lists and appointments and events this last year. Everyday I have noted a moment that made that day particular to itself, a mindfulness exercise. Reading them through revealed a sort of diary poem so I applied some editing and here it is:  January Trees sing like whales in high wind. Cold bright day, looked at the sea, ate fish. Ate too much sugar, structured a poem. First snowdrops seen. What I thought a lupin turns out to be a hellebore. Slept beautifically. February Storm Doris, bins akimbo! Rescued scarecrow. So many rainbows it's raining rainbows! Stabbed in thumb by hawthorn. Dog had toast and sausage. Saw deer bound through sparse snowflakes.  New Storm Doris blows over hellebore. Did all my Tae Kwon-Do patterns and hid biscuit tin. Watched hailstones bounce off camellia leaves. Pancakes! March Brown patch on sock does turn out to be coffee....

Titania's Curious Other Life ‘It’s been this way for… I don’t remember… Like I’ve just been born out of this… box? It isn’t an actual box, of course. It’s a room.  A room in my mind. Location regardless, I’m trapped in it.  Here I am trapped. In a room. In my mind. It doesn’t matter how much those idiots say oh, get dressed up, go out - I can’t! They can’t see that I’m trapped. Because it’s in my mind. Not their minds, they don’t have any. They are just tin, hollow tin. They don’t even want to go out, they just wait for orders.  Being stupid makes them content, they are boxed up, lined up, they can’t see life should be anything else.’ Titania sighs. She has given her monologue to a row of cardboard angels, and gets blank smiles in return. ‘Not hiding. Trapped.’ It is hard for them to understand, she knows, but she wishes they would make more of an effort. They look at her as though she were a shy child hiding behin...

So, where are we? There’s a wasp in the bathroom again, wandering on foot, has an air of lost yet determined. Can relate. I photographed it. Where was it we wanted to be? Can’t recall. Mostly we have dropped the habit of expectation. There does need to be space for spontaneity.  A map point check, that’s what we need. We had started out on this journey, let’s presume a mountainous route, not on the mountain at all, but way below sea level. Mountains were myths.  Nevertheless, we trudged upwards. Trudge is an apt word. Eyes almost shut, one foot at a time, weary, that word holds the feeling well. Don’t be sorry for us though, we also had good coffee and places to go wild swimming, and car park picnics, and belly laughs. And a sort of destination. A bit of land to call our own. A house we built. A sanctuary. I want a lake, and woods, and probably a pirate ship, and a hillbilly hot tub, a sauna made of old tyres - it’s all so real in my head, ...

Poorly me sat in bed, looking through a window: I see the grey-stone shed has chartreuse lichen and one tawny leaf stuck in the centre of a wobbly tile: all the roof looks like the teeth of a doddery monster. There's a job to be done before winter storms in and floods out the dodgy electrics. Roof dentist. I see drab olive clouding the polytunnel - it needs washing, so what there is of winter's light can filter through, keep our greens growing. Later, when my cold-head clears, none of that will trouble me; nor the rat burrow newly appeared under the compost bins, nor the pruning or the planned adventures with miscible oils, or setting out the fruit cage frame which should have been done months ago. So I will not fret. Patience for resting is a new skill. I shan't say I've mastered it. The dusting got done, and the carpets swept, rosehips brewed, and maybe I did flavour some sugars, and wring the juice from an orange. And one load of laundr...

H ere’s the introduction to the book I have almost succeeded in reading this month: ‘We live, we love. We laugh and grieve and learn and grow. Life is a forge that burns away the surface, strengthens the core, and reveals the soul. This collection of essays and memories plunges through more than a decade of the beautiful struggle that is marriage and parenthood and finding one’s self amidst the tangle of both. This journey weaves joy and sorrow, passion as well as isolation, into a tapestry that makes such an ordinary life, more splendid than its solitary threads.’ Note especially: ‘collection of essays and memories.’ Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Season-C-Clickett/dp/1536876828/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 where there is no mystery about the publisher: Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (October 3, 2016) I bought it because I very much liked the blog it sprang from, Splendour In A Plastic World. Plus the author bought my ...