Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Four shifts at my new job completed. That’s 96 hours, I am surprised to calculate. Twice as many as planned but there’s a staffing crisis, and therefore an opportunity to redress our finances. I have a list of things we should buy - we aren’t up to making our own power tools just yet, for example. Mr has been minding the garden. I come back to it delighted. Beans grow, cauliflowers fight slugs, nasturtiums flow: stories, progress, magic. Air shimmers, heavy with birdsong, with imminent rain. I take up a spade to clear the edge of the compost bins. Bindweed and nettles encroach, they hardly need compost to boost growth rates. It is glorious to be outside. Tenderly, pull grasses back from the old cat’s grave, which lies just behind the footings of our composting space. Tiny pink stems in my hand - as though a new cat is growing - one feels a kind of awe, otherworldly, and laughing at the thought, simultaneously. The last roots are scraped back as rain falls. Bird no...

Warm and dry the wind blows.  Wake up with bedcovers kicked to the floor. It’s warm but we’re unpractised, we’re too hot. Dog stretches out like she’s trying to evaporate.   Our plan is - work in the garden till sweat stings our eyes, then head to the beach for a swim.  Have we swum in the sea this year yet? It seems not!  (I have barely blogged this year too - it is the year of the hard editing, of print and production!) Search through tired fuzz, all we remember is hail, the strike of hail, and a rainbow. Whilst thinking, Mr cooks breakfast.  I discover misdoings of mice in the polytunnel. Some of the sweetcorn will survive, if I guard it.  The path we dug is mulched, the willow arch sprouts over it, pretty sprigs, tenacious wood.  Fruit trees flower, fed on compost tea. Beans newly planted at the base of bamboo arches are wind thrashed, happy.  Rows of onion leaf tassel twirl.  Breakfast is ready. We eat at the ol...

Knots in my shoulders, spots before my eyes, I know not day from night, I cradle my coffee with obligated love.  Oh my gods, do look at this house! There's a family in here somewhere... After the feverish edits, I have pushed the publish button, I am done with it! Except for that last convalescent push, where you need to inform people that you have published a book, and wonder if they would care to part with money in order to read it.  Least favourite bit, the sales pitch, which is either because I am monstrous enough to believe that readers should all ready be queuing up, or because it feels like begging; either way, pride is the obstacle.  I will go outside now, get some gardening done, reflect on nurturing seeds. Here are some links for buying paperbacks - ebook edits are to be resumed when dark falls and coffee supplies are in... UK:  Adventures In Time And Weather USA: Adventures In Time And Weather

Widemouth North, a rainbow before the hail struck. Dartmoor, with snow, ponies, and Mr, before the sun melted all the cloud away. As this year began we were not entirely baffled to discover it had not brought a great change of fortune. We are metaphorical oligarchs still, with our big family, access to coasts and moorland with moody skies, and reasonably waterproof footwear. It's merely a matter of keeping ourselves housed that causes the trouble. So I had been filling in applications for supplementary employment. So far, no interviews pending. This is either bad fortune, or perfectly fortuitous. I don’t have to be on this edge to write, but it has a motivational role. Two books in edits, one on a slow journey, one a brisk paced unexpected arrival; one more in serious development, several being lured into existence. One children’s book part illustrated, several more of those roughly worded.  Today I have been engrossed in the beauty of the seasons, up till now, w...

The trip out had been put on hold, while the storm was belting. The sky was getting darker. It seems that nothing much will get done. Granma is in the kitchen, filling up the kettle. Grandad is looking for his phone/glasses/keys/other item: he’s on a rolling programme of searching. All four grandchildren gather in the next room, out of sight, well in sound. Grandchild 3 says, with musical clarity, ‘You get on the naughty step RIGHT NOW!’ Grandchild 1 says, with a sense of subterfuge, ’You see, that’s why I don’t like her!’ Grandchild 4 (most likely recipient of the command) simply growls. Grandchild 2 says ‘What the?!’ (She implies an expletive with a comic shrug.) Grandchild 3 appears in the kitchen, dressed in the snuggle blanket. It trails behind her, majestic and soft. ‘I’m Elsa,’ she informs. ‘Let the storm rage oooonnnnn!’ Grandchild 4 appears, drawn to stand on the trail of the blanket. ‘Lie down,’ Granma instructs, picturing a head injury. ...

The Porcupines In Winter Winter is known for being cold. That is usual. Some winters are mildly cold, and some fierce. In the forest where the porcupines lived, a new winter was beginning. The trees stood bare, all the flowers hid. This was expected. And the weather spirits came, whirling around trunks and boughs, whispering forecasts. In the forest where the porcupines lived, this was usual. This year would be the coldest yet, the weather spirits told; the coldest ever. Cold enough to freeze blood, to ice a heart mid-beat. Over and over they whispered this. Never had the weather spirits been mistaken. This winter would be extreme. Migratory birds took fright and flew. The forest animals were afraid. They grew their fur extra thick and ate as much as they could manage. But as the fierce wind blew, and the ground froze, they began to die, one by one. The porcupines called a meeting. Old Grandfather Porcupine recalled a winter that had been almost this cold, w...

Feather Tor was the idea, but when we got to Dartmoor it was lost in the mist. So we left the car and followed along the road till we reached a leat. Even without the mist, or the windswept ponies, or the fire twisted bracken, or the stacked granite masses, this leat flows uphill, so magic is here. I have marched many people up this route, because they don’t believe until they are standing downstream and uphill and the water is still flowing. The old stone cross was our next idea, but visibility was closing in. In my bag I had an emergency banana, but far from fully kitted for any navigational errors. We followed the leat back, and the sound of the road. The wind was throwing horizontal rain. It spat through a gap in my toggled hood and drenched me. Dog was zigged and zagged by it; she wanted to get back into the dry car boot space and lie on her rug. I had to crouch and divest as many damp garments as modesty would allow. We put the heater on and sat. Reflected on magic, landsc...