Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Dog and me walk in dawn mist. Sails and lines web the trees: mesmerize. On the shadowed path I freeze: there is sound behind us, unrecognized. A slow turn shows nothing unexpected: the river is higher: the river catches the bank. A thump of water is the cause! Enlightened, press on: note new points of swirl, the aerial spun silks. As the daylight begins its drop, Dog and me walk in damp field grass; gleaming and fat bladed it is. Feather-scatter marks a kill site: one pale pigeon body rests in the swell of green fronds. Autumn is not all dropped leaf.

Saturday is an early start. Before the sun rises from shapes in mist there is bacon, beans, egg and toast. I forgot my sunglasses, have to squint across Devon to the palm trees of Paignton, until I am in the hall that echoes with anxieties and gathered friends. Today I wear my yellow shirt: it means I am here to shoot troubles, shush nerves, mop stuff up. Today I have a solo small boy to usher, and one lost, and three wrong divisions in two adjacent rings. I have some permissions for photography to liase, one post-fight cry, one pre-fight potential sickness. Where am I queries go uncounted. Two please don't let me miss my fight but I need the loo dilemmas, one sorry kids you missed your call. One big yell for a medic to the men's tag team event. One bout of fielding medical questions to a crowd of puzzled children. A dislocated knee, I tell them, rarely fatal, often painful. Yes, to hospital, I tell them, he can have an anesthetic then while the patella is repositioned

At the night window one brown moth is drawn through the rain. It has no concept of glass, only an obsession for a naked bulb. In pity for this scurry, the blind is lowered. Instead of night there is black silk. Inside the night window, under the bared electric, one writer sits and stares at a screen, listening for the sound of moth wings.

Little Granddaughter tells Nam-ma that whistling is not possible. Nam-ma observes the weather, she says: 'We should go to the beach and get wet and take dry clothes and eat…' 'Ice cream! Look Nam-ma!' But Nam-ma has to keep her attention on the road so they don't crash. Little Granddaughter goes careful down the steps in a pour of rain. 'Come on Fats,' she calls to the beagle. He lumbers first then limbers up, has some moments: puppyish. Dog flies off: a boomerang hound, round and back again. They walk over snaky wild rivers, wade the Widemouth keys, the miniature mountains of low tide rocks. Grandad has the wrong boots for braving the waves: Nam-ma misjudges both depth and speed. Everyone has wet socks. 'Ice cream?' Little Granddaughter remembers. On the way back she proves herself quite wrong: sallies forth a passable whistle.

When it rains if you are tired if you are lucky enough you will be sat comfortably by a window have an uncluttered view: all those little drops will stitch together make a covering sentimental yielding fragranced autumn's rain has a spice a fallen leaf musk: you will breathe it hear the rustle of it let your eyes close.

The porch is walled in coats and boots. Dry mud drifts into corners. Paint flakes off in the bathroom's dampest points. New paint is bought, the tin is under the hand towel pile. Someone has written algebraic formulas on the mirror. The kitchen is ridiculous but it works: as long as we resign ourselves to be always shifting five-gallon tubs of blipping wine. The cupboards are lined with jam. The rumtopf crock is rinsed of dust and filled: squats waiting for the winter dark on the top of a cobwebby cupboard. In the front room two dogs blame each other for that smell. Things gather in boxes waiting for inspiration, for the extra push. Up the pleasantly precarious stairs some sweeping is due. Boy makes a strike against chaos, reports to have found some floor space. His door is shut, he shuffles out, sidles the findings: covert cleaning. In the office the walls are closing in, in lines of shelves. Two lap top screens are shining, twenty fingers are typing, in betwe

Oak Dragon is up to his neck! Rain, the dour forecast tells. A frown at the sky gives hints of otherwise: an even tone to the humid grey, no rain lumps thickening. This and a stirring wind encourage washing to the line, where it swells to corpulence, seems contented. The dogs bark at a grocery van; are reprimanded; slouch and sulk in their beds. All of us are late to bed and early up and not the better for it. There can be no sympathy for this, no surprise: do the same thing, expect different results? Confess to idiocy and pull on boots. A little humility and lots of fresh air. We are but made of human stuff. The rayburn is lit, the coffee strong. The dogs cheer up. Down to the river we go, Mr, Dog, Fat Beagle and me and a tub for berries, to follow the river-fed hedge and see how the water is rising and pick as we find: Cadmium-red rowans: poisonous till cooked please note! Deep-red haws: hanging clear of thorns- Blackberries and elders, both squish t

Aurum drifts from an avenue of beech: we scuff up fibrous coinage, walking the riverbank path. Two hounds bound into the clear brook and out, sniff stumped trees, scrabble claws on flood-smoothed granite. It's good magic at Golitha Falls. We breathe it: the scent of clear river, green fern, tree bark, wet rock, fresh leaf fall. Otters live here: we will not see them, we know, we must imagine it: Dog and Fat Beagle make too much splash. We love the road signs seen on approach: Caution Otters crossing. Tree roots bump the path, mossed green: can be mistaken with delighting ease; serpents; dragon tails; giants' fingers: emerging like stories, irrepressible, earth-nourished. I think of Midas: how wrong he was, turning everything to gold with indiscriminate touch. Autumn is the wiser alchemist, truly rich. Two hounds bound: scatter fulvous treasures. Before home, coffee appears in a shining flask cap.

In between the word-blurs there are moments where I am surprised to find myself not typing or holding a biro or stooped over an open notebook. And now, while I am typing, I am thinking of them. There was Little Granddaughter sat on the edge of the moor, bathed in ice cream, legs wetted from adventures in the leat. She has a new game: one of us says 'Wait a minute…' and taps a finger against lips in thoughtful pose. She sprawls limp in laughter. There was the river raid made by me and Dog, across the Tamar to Devon to scrump a few blackberries. They were all to seed, so we came back to our own bursting hedges. There was that hungry stare into the fridge, the reassurance of congested shelves. I made a jam sandwich, brewed fresh coffee. There was the oddity tonight of arriving home to find lights flickering: a mystery solved by the discovery of a TV remote under a Fat Beagle. In short, back to the word-blur I may go: we are laughing, walking, eati

That first walk out, all gauze and swaddle; hedge webs are things spun from mist; blackberries bend stems, dew-rinsed, delicious. Flowers on the bramble bloom; last year's magic strawberry patch, though frugal, is not absent petals. Slowly the hazy cover slips; clouds keep the sky barely modest. Meals are taken at the indoor table, the windows open full stretch. An afternoon coffee is left on the sill. Two figures in the garden take washing from the rotary line, throw pegs into a pot, hasty and wet. Rain starts sparse, swells to downpour.

Chandeliers spilt; a morning sparkle; an air of morning after, of drunkenly flung. Spider-webs' irregular geometry strings the hedges, celebratory. It is a feast of fruit fatted flies for them, a larder of sugar buzz wasps; wrapped parcels hang from diamond lines. Abundant autumn, busy, glutted. Through silk-sticky marvels walk home, squinting in the lit up mist. A feast of toast for us. The jam was over-boiled, it spoons out like sweets, rounded and night-coloured.

I did write this in the car, and managed (first attempt at such technological advancement) to email it, from my phone, as a draft blog post, which I have not edited because I like the free tumble of tired words: Poor eyes all hollow and shaded like the horse of sleep has landed a double back kick. Horse of sleep? Perhaps I was thinking of a nightmare? Tired? Oh yes. In the car, typing on my phone, when I get home sleep is the next listed task. Lovely travels even with this weary nag. Enough equine reference now it all is like a laundry basket, when all the colours are chucked in, and one thinks of how this was worn for that and all is jolly, never mind the mess. I was not thinking of a nightmare, only a mulish stubbornness. Kick off day clothes, clean your face, lower eyelids, hush now mule, dreams are waiting for you.   Sent from my LG Mobile

Fleet of foot, the fox slips over the brow of the hill road; body dark, eyes lit: a photographic negative. Boy misses it but we are in good time for his early bus. He heads for London with a coach of arty students, two cheese sandwiches and a camera. (Return time: roughly midnight.) The house is quiet, bar the thump of Dog's tail. Sleep is not calling. There is leftover coffee in a silver flask. From the porch steps I see the sky lighten, the early cloud drift, the tree silhouettes still leafed, like dark lace; the oak reminds me of a Spanish shawl, a widow's dress. -Imagine a widow in this breaking dawn light: the sun rising on such a different life. Birds are piping shrill; traffic on the A30 flows, a constant churn. The steps are cold: I have on a woollen coat, and flip-flops. -All over the world, such changes are happening: seasons and circumstances. History seems a clumsy lurch: if we get to hold hands awhile, that is grace in a clumsy world. Good to

A slice of grey matter in the sky; the moon; flung up, pancake style, round as a bubble with no wobble, so confident in flux: full with it. Tired, not exhausted, driving, full-beams dredging hedges, a small catch of wild eye reflections, all along the tree tunnel the moon is flickered off and on, the tree tunnel: edged in gold leaf.

More coffee, less sleep! At 3am, realize I have fumbled this advice. Also that I have forgotten several birthdays and not posted that anniversary card. Sometimes I think these words are physical pieces of me and I write more life than I live: they are demon words each dragging a stealthy slice of me and one day there will be only words left. Some thoughts can be cured by sleep. Must unfumble that advice. The wind is a cloud-herd, over fields that have warmed earth smell and curves and busy hedges. Where feet stand is still, vibrantly still. Is my life all inked out? Shhh, says the wind: you should sleep. Where feet stand is thick with flowered cover; the hedge plants run to seed. Words are flowers. Words are seeds. Shhh, says the wind.

After the washing up, the washing (small house, wet weather, no tumble dryer, don't underestimate the skill required) and a basic level of cleaning is covered, it should be writing time, only Boy has sent a plaintive text: please can someone fetch him his photography folder? And while so close to town, I figure, why not drop in the banking and buy some cup hooks and root ginger. And while I'm near-ish there's a sale and I might as well try on some dresses, there's a wedding reception to go to on Saturday: it would be transcendent to go out and be wearing new clothes. The sale is ultra-cheap: the vision viable. This dress and that, I deliberate: mid-lengths, mostly: leopard print; lovely, but not in my size; skinny fit feather motif; looks good full of curves but it won't hold its shape; embroidered nouveau folk; so quirky but so shapeless; and a random dress picked up accidentally in the clutter of the other choices; this is the one that I buy. At home I ha

Winter sends some weather from the future: it's been some months since my hands felt bitten like this. Double-coated Dog cares not a jot. We are in the park admiring the width of old firs, the silvery trunks of birch, the feral pre-schooler in the undergrowth. 'I should have just got a dog,' the mother says. She is holding his raincoat open and smiling. Ice rain puts him off the feral life. He runs for coat cover. We are at the hill's brow when the rainbow breaks. A dinky white terrier stops to wait for a damp man. 'That's the trouble with this weather,' the man says, 'you never know.'

A Sunday blown through with rain, buffetty, quite plain. Consideration is given to finding long trousers but for now we muddle through with shorts and boots. The front door is open and the stove lit, the jam pan scrubbed from yesterday's boiling; that bubbled obsidian and set ruby; four crammed jars wait for labels, another is open, waiting for the halt of the bread maker's ruminations. A greedy glimpse shows azurite, under the kitchen's electric bulb. Washing in the lovely machine tumbles. The fabulous smell of bread. Dog eats up her chicken scraps and upstairs the sneaky rain-damped Cat is sleeping on some folded clothes.

Handfuls of rosehips and some new scratches are found in the field by the river. Formation geese make a fly-by, flanked by rankled pheasants. Blackberries get picked on autopilot now, it's so natural to step and pluck. Skin gets hot under a light coat, under a thick cloud blanket. Nettle stings edge the welly-tops, provoke no reaction. Just down by the river, standing, the truth filters in: watching the water move around the fallen oak: it could be a film set, a fairy tale: it is not. (Not so awake, walking back to the house; the writing desk; the obsessive notes; nor so asleep.) One gets to work and launches in: follow the syllabus: do this kick, add this routine back-fist; perhaps not such a routine job; in the last class a baby rolls in, fast asleep in her pram. 'If she cries, I'll pick her up,' this nice Instructor says. So for part of the lesson the tiny one burps on the Instructor's shoulder while her mother finishes a kicking drill