Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

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...

We took Granma Grace for a garrulous walk around Pince’s Gardens. To get there we went over the river on the busy bridge, under the road through chirpy subway graffiti, along dusty Alphington (which Dog did not like) under a railway bridge of rough red stone, through quieter streets which once was all grand houses and some survived the bombs of the Second World War, and in the gaps modern boxes were built, and pretty trees grow, and hydrangeas and fuschias make appealing hedges. There was a boy lived this way once, his name was Gordan, his house was called Kingsley, number 38, it backed to the allotments where his father grew vegetables of many kinds. Grace smiles. This is where Grandad Gordan lived when they first met. They would walk around Pince’s Park (which was built in 1912 and also survived bombs) and that was, she thinks, 70 years ago, at least. We are, at this point in her tale, in the Gardens, coming out from under a magnolia tree, about to step under the wisteria ar...

Friday  Dartmoor, on the night of the blood moon: we found a spot to park, walked ill shod to a set of tors - not too far, keeping markers in sight - the weather was coming in, blowing mist.  Mist when stirred can thicken fast.  We did not think we would see the red moon through the cloud but we walked anyway and climbed and felt the air around us and the pulse of the earth beneath. Wild horses were calling. The sky darkened. We tumbled back to the van to chop up vegetables and heat oil. Dog lay on her stinky cushion under the table, disdaining the clean water provided. Rain fell, a soft kind of rain.  Mist was an intermediary between day and night.   Someone somewhere will have a view of the red moon, the lunar eclipse. We have this.  Wednesday  Before the heat rose Granma Grace and I strolled out. The quayside was in pre-bustle: shopkeepers propping signs for coffee or furniture or the lure of cake...