Diary Of A Simple Week

Haha!

Wednesday 11th September 2019 Dog is curled by the airer where Granma Grace’s cloths and clothes are drying. Granma is gone to bed although it is not yet 7pm, having felt unwell, and afraid of becoming too unwell to get to her bed. I would say not to worry, I can carry you there, but she would hate to be a bother to anyone and would not wish to be carried for my sake and might start not getting up at all for the fear of that.

There was a swan asleep in the garden - Derek, a regular guest - he has heaved himself away towards the river.

Two petals have fallen from the rose in the vase.

This afternoon I answered my mobile to a flow of toddlerese from Grandchild 7 who had absconded with her Daddy’s phone.

‘Hello my darling, what are you up to today?’

‘Haha phone (+ gibberish)’

‘Is Mummy there?’

‘Er? Mep?’ (Meaning yes, but she doesn’t need to interfere.)

My daughter’s voice: ‘Er, who are you phoning?’

Me: ‘Tell her it’s Granma.’

G7: ‘Nah.’

My daughter: ‘Hi Ma, me and S are rapping and cooking tea. It’s chaos but I knew all the words.’

There was music and cackling and the clank of pans. We called ‘Love You!’ and got back to our respective days.

The world is choking in the background of all this, melancholia like fog. It is hard to focus, pointless to panic. We are making tiny good choices so at least we tried. Sometimes we do things like buy new socks and feel guilty yet grateful for the opportunity to have a good day before we all get flooded or scorched. Friday 13 September 2019 This year’s Harvest Moon is behind the plum tree; the plum tree’s shadow stripes through fire-pit smoke. Flames chomp on a log from the felled ash. I am bleeding like a sacrifice, a menstrual resurgence. Wine in our glasses. Dog wags her tail over burning wood without consequence. Close to midnight and moonlit enough to wake a few hedge birds. Some other thing snuffles in the field behind. We recline our chairs. We are layered against the evening chill, not quite enough. Over the river mist is forming, ropey, shiny-white, like unspooling tripe. Now what, Moon? Is there still magic? Will it work? Tuesday 17th September 2019 Tuesday morning we get up, we do weights Boom! And the accounts Boom! We might creak out of bed at first, we might grumble: the afterglow is all worth it. There’s no witnesses but us, so we escape the crime of smugness (until this typing gets shared, then guilty.) So why write about it? To remind myself how lovely it is to be strong and healthy, to have this most excellent of fortunes. A patch of moon in the morning sky: I say, ah yes, dear Moon, I like this magic, very much. I think I will gather blackberries from our ample hedge. Autumn sun in the sky too, nary a cloud. Washing pegged out that undulates in the fine breeze. Fingertips purple from picking, I wade through nettles to the fat crop behind the shed. For over forty years I have been a fruit forager and this is the first time that a cricket has leapt out of the brambles and knocked my sunglasses from my face. It landed on my chest, slid under my t-shirt, scrambled out, jumped into the berry pot, and back to the bramble-tangle - I think I might have become an extra in an insect martial arts movie sequence. The orb spiders held to their webs. Wednesday 18th September 2019 Today it is my intention to eat all of the roasted pumpkin seeds - a particularly chewy batch so not without challenge, but simple and agreeable and it’s sunny out and all of this together makes contentment easier to reach. 

Workouts make us look like mad professors.