Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Woke up to a sparkling frost with grass like peppermint ice. Had a bother with the car door, which sometimes freezes shut. Today it locked itself open, hence the drive to the garage with binder twine tying me in, thinking I need a new lock on this, how much is a new lock? I have forty-five pence in my purse! Mr Garage Man squirts some WD40 and laughs at me. There is something wrong with the lock but it's the wrong time to protest: the right time to say thank you and drive Boy to school. He has his walking boots on and I brought Dog, thinking we might all have to walk home while the car was garaged.  Take Dog to the park instead, where ancient pines hold symmetrically foliaged twigs up to cerulean sky, and the horizon is made of rolling moor hills. After much running, fantastically backlit, she comes back to the car with icy belly fur, dog-stalactites. At home, I don't have to fumble for my house key with numb fingers, as Boy has thoughtfully left his in the door

Sat at the front room table so I can be next to the heater and the heater, though portable, is best here where it can also dry washing. Sun blazes outside but the cold damp air has brought the washing in. I have sunglasses on for writing. This morning's walking was partly on ice. Brittle ice. Tap on my keyboard, find comfort in words. Also paint patient Christmas roses onto folded card, also make chicken pie. With sauce, this week. Reach for saucepan. Jollied up. There is a rainbow in it. A round one, like the aura that gathers round the moon. Excited enough to take a picture of it. Paraselene is a fine word: it means the image of the moon inside the lunar halo. 

Brain is tired. Brain has been working hard all week; interlinking a trio of novels, amongst other things. Also Body is tired, and a cough is taking residence, quite unasked. Danger of taking a wrong turning and then - the horror! Danger of being lost in pity. Will things turn out okay… Brain ticks over a little too fast… Jumps through subjects without conclusion… Walk through lanes with Dog, pelted with midges. Find a half ripe wild strawberry, which, in a way, changes everything. I eat it, of course. It tastes of strawberry and water. Some alpine varieties do fruit through the autumn, so these must be of that ilk. But a strawberry swelling up in the hedge in December, a berry I pick and place, rain damp, in my palm and devour, seems as something that grows from the stratum of miracles. Struggly bit. Then comes things turning out okay. Brain squeezes these words into consciousness. Body, wrapped in many layers, is warm and manages a cough free sigh. Also this pas

[Adaptation of a story by Joanna Erdody: not sure if she was the original author. I have a battered childhood copy that is not dated and has no ISBN number but before it was mine some old pencil lettering tells me it was once the property of Margaret Bradley, 48 Scott Road.] The Vain Little Tree The little tree thought to himself, again, how lucky he was to have grown so beautiful, and he felt sorry for the people who were trudging by, sighing over his perfect form. They couldn't take him to their homes. He had a card ticket tied to one of his emerald branches with a red silk ribbon. It spelt out the word RESERVED in gold lettering. He felt sorry for the other trees who did not know where they would be sent. By the end of the day, some of the others also had tickets, though the card was thinner and they were tied on with string. The tall grandfather tree held up his ticket and peered at it in the dim light. 'Ah,' he said. 'It seems I am

Behind the glass of passenger side window, artificially lit. Car park is sparsely populated. Wind blows, desolate resonance; shakes the last of the leaves from the token trees growing from graveled squares. Coffee banners thrill in the fight with unseen forces. Inside the superstore warmth is wafted through aisles of every kind of fruit. Breath hot into the wool loops of scarf. Glance up, only a glance is required. Mr has a signature walk, I always know it. I wonder how many steps I have watched him take. I always know him, but never quite what will be in the shopping bag. Brandy, port, two packs of thermal clothing. 

Decision to take an early brisk walk is slowed by the ice underfoot. The verges have enough rough ground to hold steps at the width and length intended. Dog paws perhaps are made of rough ground, for she doesn't slip on any angle of hill; pads on any piece of tarmac she pleases. We are on the run of lane from Treniffle to Luccombe when the dark sky breaks. Cloud soaks up a flow of saffron light, it billows out like flaming June. Once I caught the edge of the Northern Lights; it was like this, luminosity flaring from night, just as suddenly gone. The risen sun and its tangerine finery slide behind muffling cloud. Dog and I walk, crunching ice, under the quilted silver.

There was no camera handy to record two of Baby's best happenings today. The fall from the wash basket was clicked, and the sleeping on sofa with Dog. The first unseen piece was playing in the water that gathers in the kayak, using an empty snail shell as a dainty cup, and a piece of fir twig as a spoon. Ingestion was gently dissuaded for sanitary reasons; by way of a distraction because I should dislike to curb those fey impulses. We took ourselves to the little stone shed to watch Grandad fine tune the chainsaw. Down at the woodpile, Grandad hewed old trunks and Baby was introduced to cows. At first they were giant heads squeezed over the low wall and under the bars, with brown eyes even wider than Baby's. She put out a hand and a cow tongue rasped the quilt of her coat sleeve. After a few laughing fits, Baby gathers handfuls of hay to put over the low wall. The cows are not cows, incidentally, they are skitty bullocks, most uncertain of the kneehigh pink coated t