Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Under the blurred waxing of a blood moon, we are frowning, getting pestered with details, nothing so vital, just needing attention, but there’s not enough sleep for this nonsense. Metaphorically one cannot step without finding a splinter in a sole, a bee in one’s hair, and the phone ringing and the hob on fire, and there’s no coffee. There will be peace and quiet though, under that mess. I will find it.  Might need help. So I will meditate, I will take a guided meditation - I have a list and choose this one: Guidance From A Future Self. She will know about the mess and the peace. So I am walking barefoot without splinters or thistles in an imaginary, familiar place, smelling warm salt air, fresh cut grass, to a bench where Future Me sits. I can’t see her clearly, she’s hazy, I like her presence, it seems wise. How will I get to where you are? Is my question. I don’t exist, she says, I only exist depending on what you do. I can’t help, it’s on you. Wh...

Hot Flashes & Cold Lemonade Firstly - sorry for the late posting. Undertook 5 hours of sparring to raise money for a UK charity that helps prevent young suicide, we think we’ve raised over £2000 which is ten times what we expected, and I also entirely underestimated the toll on my arms. Made it through the week but not much typing happened! And if that wasn’t a good enough excuse, my care shifts have changed to waking nights. Good for your creativity, to be tired, apparently, as it unhitches your mind and lets things connect freely. It is not good for sentence structure or attention to punctuation so I’ll stick a secondary apology here in case none of the following makes sense. The book I am reviewing is Hot Flashes & Cold Lemonade by Susan Flett Swiderski. It’s a first novel, self published, but not an entirely wild gamble. I have been reading Susan’s blog for eons, it’s a welcoming, humorous place to go, pretty sure every comment gets a response, and I really appre...

Our matriarch, the impish Granma Grace, has not had the best of times, of late. A succession of hospital stays, a succession of strokes and falls - it has taken its toll on us all. My sister-in-law has given up her job to care for her mother, and keep her cosy in her own home where she wants to stay. Mr takes over once a week to ease his sister’s work, and to spend time with the lady who has done so much for her children and her grandchildren and still won’t stop apologising that she can’t cook us all a feast these days. ‘I’d give up,’ she sighs, ‘but I’m too nosy, I want to see how everyone turns out!’ This is a good sentence. She gets her words muddled, especially when tired, and some of them come out unintentionally inappropriate, some fantastically creative, burbling like a hillside brook, clear in meaning to us - because we know this scenery, this beautiful bonkers place of Grace. We even pick up words. Paramacetameter is good for headaches, did you know? Or Cer...

A peek back at the void between Christmas and New Year.  We filled it with grandchildren (and work, which is sort of cheating).  Managed to corral four of the little Gs for Granma’s instantly regretted plan.  ‘Let’s go ice skating,’ she says, ‘at the Eden Project!’  It’s sparkly magic there and that has made Granma overlook her mortal fear of ice. (Once there was an accident: head… crunch… she still hears the echo.) But sparkly magic is strong, she tells herself. Grandad rubs his knees to comfort them.  Oh, but look at those four sparkly magic faces!  Pretending altruism, Granma also pays for Uncle E to attend - Uncle E who can actually skate.  (He isn’t fooled. He is bribed.) ‘You don’t have to skate, if you don’t want to.’ Granma says 1000 times, to each  little  G, forgetting that a lack of pressure will compel. So she has to queue for skates, give up the welly boots, mince onto the ice. Grandchil...

  One A5 silver diary has been the recipient of the many lists and appointments and events this last year. Everyday I have noted a moment that made that day particular to itself, a mindfulness exercise. Reading them through revealed a sort of diary poem so I applied some editing and here it is:  January Trees sing like whales in high wind. Cold bright day, looked at the sea, ate fish. Ate too much sugar, structured a poem. First snowdrops seen. What I thought a lupin turns out to be a hellebore. Slept beautifically. February Storm Doris, bins akimbo! Rescued scarecrow. So many rainbows it's raining rainbows! Stabbed in thumb by hawthorn. Dog had toast and sausage. Saw deer bound through sparse snowflakes.  New Storm Doris blows over hellebore. Did all my Tae Kwon-Do patterns and hid biscuit tin. Watched hailstones bounce off camellia leaves. Pancakes! March Brown patch on sock does turn out to be coffee....

Titania's Curious Other Life ‘It’s been this way for… I don’t remember… Like I’ve just been born out of this… box? It isn’t an actual box, of course. It’s a room.  A room in my mind. Location regardless, I’m trapped in it.  Here I am trapped. In a room. In my mind. It doesn’t matter how much those idiots say oh, get dressed up, go out - I can’t! They can’t see that I’m trapped. Because it’s in my mind. Not their minds, they don’t have any. They are just tin, hollow tin. They don’t even want to go out, they just wait for orders.  Being stupid makes them content, they are boxed up, lined up, they can’t see life should be anything else.’ Titania sighs. She has given her monologue to a row of cardboard angels, and gets blank smiles in return. ‘Not hiding. Trapped.’ It is hard for them to understand, she knows, but she wishes they would make more of an effort. They look at her as though she were a shy child hiding behin...

So, where are we? There’s a wasp in the bathroom again, wandering on foot, has an air of lost yet determined. Can relate. I photographed it. Where was it we wanted to be? Can’t recall. Mostly we have dropped the habit of expectation. There does need to be space for spontaneity.  A map point check, that’s what we need. We had started out on this journey, let’s presume a mountainous route, not on the mountain at all, but way below sea level. Mountains were myths.  Nevertheless, we trudged upwards. Trudge is an apt word. Eyes almost shut, one foot at a time, weary, that word holds the feeling well. Don’t be sorry for us though, we also had good coffee and places to go wild swimming, and car park picnics, and belly laughs. And a sort of destination. A bit of land to call our own. A house we built. A sanctuary. I want a lake, and woods, and probably a pirate ship, and a hillbilly hot tub, a sauna made of old tyres - it’s all so real in my head, ...