Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

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 i...

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 w...

            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 col...