Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Squirrel huffles along an oak branch, kicking a splat of water from leaves; as though he’d emptied his chamberpot down on the heads of the lane interlopers. Grumpy morning squirrels are not good shots, luckily. Above us also are spider zip wires, weighed down by mist. Later when the sun shines they might be diamond bunting… hmm, which is better: spiders on zip lines shouting ‘woooo yeah’ or the exuberant decadence of diamondiferous garlanding? Web lines in the back garden assist the tether of the tarpaulin, which is Mr’s poor substitute for a shed. Today he finishes making a picnic bench from pallets and wood scraps. The spiders are no help with the carpentry but will set up a fly patrol around the table. Perhaps they will join our picnics; bring a plate of fly wraps; a jug of moth smoothie. (I’m alive to spiders in particular today. Thinking of our godson, who is four years old exactly and an apprentice Spiderman. Spiderman in Wellington boots, blowing out his bir...

Under the mist a steamroller squishes fresh road surface. Under our feet, flinty little chippings to be marvelled at. And my fingers are cold, I tell Mr; the autumn is cooling, I feel it. Against the mist, blockish bovine shapes observe our passing. The bullocks are curious; packed solid with brisk curiosity, crowding at the gate. At the edge of the tar sprayed lane, slugs venture; only one that I see is crossing the unfamiliar terrain, the rest recoil; it’s the first time I’ve witnessed slugs in uproar. Before work, I smell of sun lotion and fresh air. I sit and draw careful lines: flowers growing from a grave pile of rocks. Our shy neighbour calls through the hedge- would we like some green beans? She hands them through a small gap of hazel while we discuss the merits of a petrol mower. After work, the night air has a zesty slice of ice to it. Mist hides the road, we believe, and that seems to keep the road firmly in existence, whereas fields have blurred to impossible ...

Girl models one of Capability's hats; I am wearing Girl's hat, and writing something like a diary This is a series of extracts from my real diary, not fiction, which I am revisiting to find out how I came to be here (hence the cartography of the title) and why I am so clever at being happy. The main points so far are that I actively choose to be happy; to find what is genuinely positive about a situation rather than grimace and bear it; that I notice and therefore appreciate my surroundings, that I do ask myself questions to be sure that the path I follow is the right one for me. None of our internal maps are likely to be identical but there may be something in the drafting process that can help in the discovery of happy places. Here I am, aged 24- lugging my youthful notebook around college. “5 th June 1994 Capability F Sequin’s 21 st birthday. The question I want to ask myself every day is: Is this my life? I use writing to be sure of my path, to so...

Beady birds string the electric wires. Either side of Dog’s head an ear is in full flight. I press over the chunky treads of tractor, listening. Cut sticks of rapeseed respond with a percussional plink, while hollow wheat stalks ring like wind instruments. We play to the sky, which looks to be dissolving, into the dip the river inhabits; out of sight it disperses, into the bumpy flow of the Tamar, taking our music with it; takes it all the way to the ocean. Fish will hear the earth sing. There are many wheat fields so I use the marker of the church spire to keep direction. Dog jumps straw hurdles until she lies belly up at the field edge, steaming, and has only the energy to flick her tail. While she cools her core, a palmful of blackberries travel one by one into my mouth. I can’t see the spire from here. We could easily be lost, and not mind about it at all. 

Almost how the garden looked today Mr cuts the grass. I kick my flip flops under the pampas, to keep shady, and walk around the garden with Rabbit. He favours the perimeters; nips off the tips of blackberry shoots that have escaped the brutish mower. My washed hair is drying in the sun, absorbing the rich light. The lawn I admire as manicured. Rabbit has his harness, the red one with the gold bell, and matching lead. Leaky hosepipe sounds like a water feature; a long tumble of water over imaginary marble steps. We require a statue, I say to myself, so that Rabbit and I may take a turn about it, and speak of it later over dinner with dear friends. I shall tell them that I wore the long cotton skirt with the rose print; the darling rose print; and so admired the pastoral composure of the astutely cultivated fields.  Dog and Rabbit share some shade: taken before the lawn was chopped, one should add

Yesterday when Baby ran in our garden she held out her palms to the beat of the sun. Today she waves as starlings flock, as we cross the cut field following the whirling tail of Dog. The sky is damp more than it is any particular colour. Baby studies the birds; they gather on a wire, fall like confetti into staccato winds. A slug dark with purpose seems lost amongst dry stalks. The ground curves down to thick green hedges. On skin, air leans close, whispers indecipherable sounds. Baby turns her head, from one edge of field to the other, seeking the source of the murmur. She looks to the earth, she looks to the heavens. She looks into her grandmother’s eyes and smiles with the semblance of someone who has recalled a thing of extraordinary import. I scoop her up like sifted gold; we run with Dog, laughing and laughing. 

Autumn starts hot. Heat flares in the lanes, swells the hedge fruit. Reach around the orb spiders; pluck warm berries. Half ripe tang jumps a skip into a step. In the wheat field a yellow machine waddles. Thatch lines steam behind it. At the gatepost where the dead fox has dropped, bones bounce sunlight back through straggly grass. Silence: but for footsteps, but for the preoccupied machine, but for the contemplative chewing of cattle. Tilted head holds no thoughts, only acknowledges sun on skin. In sighs, wordless ordinary worries disperse. Later, the kitchen fills with rice scent, coffee burbles, the twist of wine pouring. The sky moves from milky opal to pale dark. A flat moon disk slots into cloud. Pale seeps away; peaceable darkness remains .