Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Wipers smudge road spray from the brow of the car. Even through the last of these storm clouds a staring light necessitates dark glasses. The windows are open, finding some freshness from the warm wet ground. We are on our way to Granma Grace, Dog and I, running late, catching up time. I had put my food bag in the foot-well at a poor angle; on arrival I find blood from Dog's food has spilt and everything needs rinsing out: my breakfast strawberries smell of butchery. We had caught up with time - Granma was sleeping, oblivious - so we took the parking pass to the car and embarked on our routine stroll by the river, walking on a shadow strewn path past the shallow water where the summer has sprung a mush of weed and iris leaves are striking up from soft mud. Where two gulls struggle for mastery of a pigeon corpse, in full view of the other pigeons; for which I criticise the victor and it flies off. Dog is at a nonchalant trot, smelling stories out of grass.  Late...

It was the second time I had witnessed this death. A small bird, a hedge bird, skimming traffic, mistimed. The first time I heard the thunk, saw the bird spin. This second time I see the body, the size of my fist, hit the road's edge; I see the last breaths drawn in; breaths that seem bigger than the body.  A sadness strikes through me: for the creatures' fate, for the parallel with the plight of earth; a heavy hold of it. All day I cannot be comfortable, cannot find peace with it. Inaction seems like inertia, seems the wrong surrender. But what action is required: how to push this weight? How to use it? To make a pendulum and keep hope? I take my sun-heated brain to the river to think. It will be different for each of us, says brain, from the willow's shade, though maybe the crux is the same: along the waterway comes a decisive breeze, trailing its weather-fingers through leaves, stirring the river's surface where beady eyed fish pop up to...

June is rolling by, awash, so everyone has forgotten that it's summer now.  This morning I peered into the vegetable plots, into the swaying minarets of onion buds, the splay of cabbage seed pods, not sure if the raspberries were the summer or the autumn kind.  Lovage flowers, tiny spray on tall stems; lavender in bud: summer. Wild strawberries and rose petals in the dehydrator and the windows open to better hear the thunder: summer. After an evening swim one must wrap up: always.  I am busy writing a story that seems to be running in rings about me, I am busy wild swimming to clear my head; working to pay the bills, reading up on rural planning law to wrestle reality from a dream. Picking the roses, the strawberries, the onion flowers. Tending the cabbage bed.  Standing still when I remember: see the swallows swoop by. Or floating, bobbing up toes, while each rain drop ripples out. Or that stop on the beach, while I am looking ridiculous with...

Thursday Waiting, yes. A particular kind of waiting like a string pulled. This week I have been looking after Granma Grace, we call it our Girlie Sleepover time. Grace holds this tautness most of the time, close to the bones of her. If I made representative art I would play with the idea of a pulled string twined with blooms - roses, tulips, cyclamen, all colours bold and pretty. This day the wait has a clear focus. We are waiting for baby news. Outside it rains heavy. We watch geese cross the lawn and leave again as though they had discovered something. We hear machinery whirr next door and workmen chattering. I have to recharge my phone twice from looking: no news. Friday Granma has stirred and gone back to sleep this morning, for rest calls her more and more. While she sleeps in her bed her foot tapping stops, while she sleeps in her chair it activates. I leave her have a lie in for this reason. Eighty-nine years to process, physical decline from age and stroke damage to acce...

Summation of my blog posts: - I am THIS TIRED - Weather - Birds are singing - Coffee - Look, words Today is no great exception; wavy minded, grey glare sky, geese-clatter lost under the roll of the washing machine and the volume of royal baby coverage that Granma Grace is entertained with, empty mug number 3, novel outline on a bit of foraged paper.  It's hard to think so maybe I should take this as a sign. A bolt of sun drops through the window. There's pink blossom wobbling on a potted bush. Daisy dots across the lawn, a backdrop of swaying willow. Grace is snoozing through the adverts, tapping her feet as she does for all the things that are going or may yet go wrong for the whole of the world, everything from a stain on your shirt to the sixth mass extinction. In balance of this she also is happy for everyone. If you are feeling anything less than splendid, she is sending you a hug right now, and love, and a biscuit/piece of fruit/check the cupboa...

Ten years of talking, I think, before the camper van dream was dragged to reality. Not just talking - lots of working lots of hours, and meanwhile making other plans and working for those too until the world was swimming in front of my tired eyes and I had to sit down.  Sit and dream of living in a quiet field, planting trees, making foraged soups and syrups. We have the van, which may never be finished, being a learning project.  We have plans which if you took them out of our heads would fill a hangar. There are alterations for variables and equations of 'if this, then that, if not, then this other way' and it is tricky to keep track of where we are going. The underlying why is the desire to live in nature, and to be part of not letting the world be ruined. In April last year we collected the van. It stunk of diesel and promptly developed an electrical fault. Today it is crammed full of - I'm not actually sure. It is being a temporary shed. But it works, ...

Day began unwelcome but I was the one who had set the alarm. I made coffee and peace with myself, opened the door for Dog to slink out, let the birdsong in. Looked up. Grey sky - the marbled kind, like smoke frozen. And the sun bled upwards, orange-gold, worshipped by field flowers. Most preparations had been done the day before; clothes set out, bags packed with food, laptop, notebooks, comfort things like a wallet and more notebooks and spare pens. The dog walking bag which slings easily about the shoulders. Water bottle. The right keys.  The drive is good, with this sky to view and smooth moving queues, and Dog settles in the boot as she recognises the journey to Granma Grace's house. There is even a parking space near to the house, a rare treat. One with room to reverse in and still get the boot opened and let Dog leap out, tail at full whirr.  We sneak in to get the parking pass - hear a light snoring which is the noise of All's Well.  Put the pass i...