Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Air is mild in temperature and temperament, high in humidity. Wind adds a frisky chill factor, sun streams add heat, dark clouds deliberate. This is my favourite kind of sunshine, a burst of brightness before rain. I was wandering up the rough lane, slowly drinking strong black coffee, watching the mist that hides the moor peaks. Dog, bored of convalescence, jumped the fence into the field.  Trusting her instinct, me and my coffee followed. We wander from the top path down past the exposed rock face, where the stone crumbles and crinkles, it looks wrinkled like an old elephant’s arse. The tumble of cold breeze and damp sunny air remind me of peeling off a wetsuit in a sandy car park, and the tussle to get dry clothes on salt saturated skin. There is always a thermos of strong black coffee in the back of the car, waiting. The last leap year day of February starts. I watch for the rain but the air has absorbed it. The sun makes us loll like lizards, a flake of moon rests in the ...

Today we took all the furniture and unfixed objects from Boy’s room and the Spare room and the home office room that is wedged under the stairwell. The Spare room turned into Boy’s new room, Boy’s room became an office and under the stairs a futon slouches under big flora and fairy lights, overlooked by a wooden giraffe. Then we were tired and queued up for hot baths. The wood burner has been full of fire all day, if we don’t have baths it will boil the water in the pipes making them bubble and clank and the taps get dangerous. We have barely stepped out of the door into the switch on-switch off rain. Dog is convalescing a cut paw, curled in the armchair watching the furniture move about. 

Forecast sunshine is cordoned off by cloud. The lazy warmth gets through, it is sinking into the ground, looking for bedrock. Every step sends a spray of rainwater back into the air, and it falls back down in a re-enactment. Dog runs in her water-world, she has had breakfast, she is out in the fields, the fulfilment of her sensible expectations bring much happiness. I have found some germs that I am sure don’t belong to me. My nose has a tide now, a fast tide that I try to hold back with strong tissues. I think, I have had breakfast, I am out in the fields, it is a fulfilment, and even two achievements. Imagine not being able to wipe your own nose. Remember how lucky you are. I say thank you, universe, and the temperate light trickles down. 

The daffodil choir warm up their yellow throats. They sing up to the sky and the piercing circle of sunlight. They sing to the buzzards that scan the fields from warm air currents. They sing to me, Boy and Dog walking in the fields, under the sky and the sun and the birds of prey. They stand bold upright in the vase on my kitchen windowsill, singing their yellow-bright song, while I dip the dirty plates in hot water and soap bubbles, while I scrub with the plastic brush. I can smell fake lime, fresh air from the open windows, daffodil flowers and the sunshine that is trapped in my skin. Dog lies on the doormat, cleaning up a pot of cream.

Black night bleaches out into the pale ghost of day without any sign of sunrise. A middle chunk of day happens indoors. We are in a sports hall watching out for beautiful kicks and swift punches, to put scores on fights. After the medals are all handed out and the photographs taken and the hall empties, we go outside to find sunshine filtering itself through tree shadows, lower and lower. From an A30 lay by we watch the sunset, we talk about the clouds, how the aeroplane trail has cut through them, like a plume of impact. Sinking light in the sky is red-peach and grey, colours of flowers, fruit, metals and mist. Suddenly the moon is there, and one star, and they lie side by side resembling two eyes, one is a twinkle, the other is the moon curved in a wink.

Today the weather suspends precisely between sun and rain. All day we are carrying umbrellas and hot in coats. It is a benevolent jest. Baby laughs in the fields, watching Dog run, watching grass get walked on. Later we go into town and buy a new red kettle. The old model won’t boil water, so it has done itself out of a job. Baby laughs at the giant tv in the electric shop, she has smeared biscuit all over her face, as is customary for babies. I have been awake longer than the sun has been in the sky. Concentration is wandering off. I am retracing my steps after it. But now I can make coffee.

The fields are in their morning dress, darkly wet bark and water beaded grass blades. I have my velvet pyjama bottoms, the striped top with the bonfire spark holes, a green winter coat and my Wellington boots about my person. It is not much cold at all. Dog chases the ball over the moss slope, straight through gorse and bramble and thistle. Dog retrieves the ball, each time with some jaunty flora attached to her fur. Today there is a brown oak leaf on her front right flank, giving her one avant-garde jodhpur leg. Yesterday there was a dried thistle hat. When the goose-grass comes, with its sticky burs, she will wrap some around her head in a wild bridal fashion.