Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

A Midnight Mermaid One eye opens. Lines of light drop between each beam’s shadow. That repetitive shoosh becomes sand dragging under waves. This is the beach house. Beyond the conservatory roof is the moon, it has pulled the tide high. Your feet want to be on the sand, it’s all you think of - that beach, that light, how it catches the tilt of the sea. The salt tang. The feel of sand under bare feet. So your feet go to the floor, your arms pull into a gown, your palm presses the door handle. Outside is exactly right. Silvered, doused in magic. Shoosh, shoosh. A warm press from the air. The press of your feet in cooling sand. There- There in the white break something rolls, fluid as the water, shining. Shoosh… A hand spills from the wave, a shining hand. The shock is a thrill. This is night magic, you are sure of it. You crouch; creep closer. Strands of hair flow in, flow out. A figure slender, dense with muscle. ...

In supermarkets Halloween summons pumpkins to the vegetable aisle. It conjures all kinds of hellish plastic in mass display - the ephemeral becoming eternal and choking our world, accompanied by organ chords and the vocals of Vincent Price.  I have been unthinkingly complicit in the past, short on cash and full of joy.  In the cupboards here still are plastic pots and a scoop for carving. A skull necklace menaces from a door knob.  There have been multiples of cardboard skeletons, paper spiders, vats and vats of pumpkin soup too; recycling into food is (maybe) my favourite kind.  Love the celebration, despair of the waste; this is Halloween, and every day - beyond the eyeless stares and trails of bony fingers there are shelves and shelves, aisles and warehouses, full of packages of things we mostly do not need; things that have travelled more than most of us, that have been churned from leaky factories, things that make 'processed' a dirty word....

Not a hurricane, not a typhoon, this storm - a tree feller still, a pouncing wave maker. Through it drives my little car, my mouse-white car, half hid in leaf, scuffing wheel trim on twigs; around the clumped earth on fresh underside of oak root, bumping down a wind tunnel of branches. Out and back the little car goes, lost in rain and road spray. I too am lost: busy, distracted. Long hours, long lists. Between frost and hot, lately, the weather has wandered. Tomato plants lost to the usual dose of late blight, the cucumber vine on last days, flower rot blooming. Chillies are popping out, speedy and spicy and filling the dehydrator rack: pods of winter warmth awaiting. Earlier I had lain in the hammock, duvet wrapped, listening to bird song, to leaves quiver. They say that winter will come hard, four months without reprieve. So in the car I sit, parked away from stray roof slates, eyes closed, and the wildcat wind is not cold and I remember to love the heft o...

Not my most current project, since I'm out on a Granma Grace care week and can only bring my l'il Chromebook with me, which limits projects and keeps logging me in on the wrong Google account and suchlike minor mischief. An opportunity however to work on something that could take another decade to finish but if this seems daunting I must remember that the time will pass anyway. Also I have got a little more blogging done which I have enjoyed and hope you have too. This developing chapter is written in the past tense which I struggle with, please do pick me up if I've unwittingly swapped anywhere. It is not a dramatic scene as this is a calm point, which will suit this book (but no spoilers, I want the finished article to surprise you). Any feedback is valued. Mr Longhi wiped his brow. The heat grew heavier each year, he thought, little by little, a courtesy so he could get used to it; or he was slower and that was why the ice cream seemed to melt faster. Her...

This week I'm Granma Grace-sitting. We are having a fine time so far, I have only frustrated myself by attempting to get better search engine optimisation while our Grace takes pleasant naps. It isn't a silly thing to try (SEO or naps). I think I have over-tried though, and need to stop before I get reckless - there's a sort of madness in this grasping for success. Perhaps I should go back to querying, find an agent, seek the traditional publication route. What am I actually wanting from this? To get my words in front of more people; to sell books to help finance buying a field. I'm always busy, always working; out at work, working from home, relentless. I stop here and there, recharge, go.  Bringing a dream to life can be a tough gestation.  So, this dream, this field and the living we will make and do within it, why do I want that? To be living in tune with myself and the earth, to spend quality time with family and friends; a sense of achievement co...