Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Fine mist opaques, obscures. On the fat trunked ash there are several stark dead branches. Silhouettes like this are where ogres come from. On the lane, a soft carpet of plop. The risen sun, a concentration of brightness in the white sky, has heat, but the ground is a drop colder than yesterday. On the thick slate chunk of the pantry windowsill there is the skull of a light brown fox, maybe the oddest thing we have cropped from these hedges. At our old house, we famously found a whole Land Rover in the undergrowth; that has been the most surprising thing. A 1964 model. The mist sneaks back to the river line while I’m making coffee, while I set the washing machine singing. Its song is rumbly and full of pauses, very modern stuff. I have a well documented adoration of the machine that washes my clothes. When its song spins to a finale, I slither out the wet cloth, lump it in a trug, lug it to the line. A transformation need only be simple. Wet cloth, pegged to line, under the s

Across the light blue dressing of new road surface lies a layer of slopped dung, bumped from a series of high-sided trailers, jigging along behind tractors, from the muck store to the cut fields. The thing I recall most about my day is how it smelt. Not pleasant, exactly, but reassuring: the cyclic nature of it. Which part of the cycle you focus on, that’s up to you. By day; and that I am happily relating stench demonstrates the truth of this; the writing, the editing and the bout of illustration all goes well. Today I do not need rescuing by a Buster Keaton spider or culinary hypnosis. This evening I stand outside, under a sky that would be clear if it weren’t for all the stars. High beats and low bass sound out: a party in the direction of Treniffle. The air is fresh, and stinks. Spread my hands palms upward, fill my lungs.  

If I tell you I have been writing and editing today, the words are tidy, the actions sound entirely civilised. But I feel like I have been dragging my intestines out. I feel like my brain is so swollen with story it’s not healthy, it’s gone too far. Impatience growls, rattles the sharp points of my teeth. Big House Spider climbs the woodchip paper; loses his footing several times, dangles by a leg or two, clowns me from this perturbing desk fug. Time to get out of my chair, clatter some pots in the kitchen. Soup is not on the menu today, and on our budget, the meal plan must be respected. Macaroni cheese is the plat du jour, so I can simmer up some sauce to soothe and settle this story-cholesterolled mind. Opening the fridge and surveying the size of the cheese block Mr brought home; it was on offer, of course; that should ease the growl and get me grinning. I take a cheese cleaver to the cheddar brick, take the cross section to the grater, pare it down to cru

Furling mist in the valley line this morning, heralding afternoon heat. We stand a while, trace the unseen river, until cold jabs us to a brisk walk. Arm hair bristles. Extremities are chilled and spiky. Stolid bullocks, legs askance, are rendered part ghost in the haze. The sweetcorn field has no edge; might be infinite. Washing is pegged above fresh mowed grass; blows hot and cold in the afternoon tussle of sun and breeze. I’m sat at the picnic table, paper weighted, drawing a sketch of stylised waves. Mr is snicking out lengths of ash sapling, to neaten the garden boundaries. He fetches me a cup of tea, a circle of clear bronze in a flat-bottomed cone. The dogs need a second walk. Wild strawberries grow, just past the curve of the turning to Treniffle. We should study the geometry of this curve; I think; we should replicate it, to catch and keep such a measure of sun that persuades midsummer plants to flower and fruit in September. The berries are a clear ton

Today’s weather is loose blocks of summer heat. Cold wind blows through the gaps. Some people have a favourite season; I love best the play of seasons in flux. We have a day off work. We think: a change of scene is a healthy act. Fat Beagle can’t jump into the boot space of my car. We have to hoist. Dog leaps next to him with a minimal gloat. She prefers the back seat but it’s full of Girl, Baby and pram. Mr has the sandwich backpack in the front footwell, on top of a collection of stuff I always forget to put anywhere else: three newspapers, a butter knife, two bungee cords, an empty water bottle. At the edge of the Bude canal we undertake the slow paced walk known as pootling. Except Dog, of course, who prefers swimming along side, in the waterway, in the thin deep mud of the neighbouring ditch. Consequently she changes colour many times. Fat Beagle takes an unintentional dip, miscalculating his centre of gravity. Dog slips into the water with comparative grace,

I see Big House Spider on Sunday morning, running away from the laundry basket. Furtive is the word that jumps in my mind. I forget about it, because there is Baby, breakfast, Dog, Fat Beagle, more breakfast, an incident with Cat and a load of washing. And washing up, and don’t touch information- Rayburn hot, Fat Beagle’s bottom unclean: important stuff. Eventually, Baby, both Dogs, two Grandparents, a pocketful of poo bags and a pram hood balancing plastic pots for blackberry collecting, are out in the lanes. Fat Beagle trundles on a thick lead, Dog whips in and out of badger tracks, Baby sings to the sway of the leaves. Mr regrets short trousers. Nettles bustle in the base of the hedges. It might rain, it might not. We might fill the pots, we might not. Maybe the child will cry, the hounds will misbehave. One step at a time, we stroll, spying out fruiting stems, under the heavy grey sky. The pot lids are pressed on. Through translucent Tupperware, baubles of blackberr

Promise of the morning mist held through to evening. Much food chewed by many people, sat at the picnic table, under scrutiny of three puppy-eyed dogs. Between Baby, six other Family Guests, plus the three of Boy, Mr, and me, also the three dogs, Rabbit, Cat, two tents, the Rayburn, the washing, blackberry picking, cooking, washing up, tea brewing, wood chopping and the ongoing construction of a lean to shelter, barely any quiet seconds tick by. It’s the loveliest kind of busy. By the evening our total numbers have waved down to four people, two dogs; responsibilities diminished to checking the Rayburn, putting Baby into her travel cot. While I wait for the overtired protest mumble to drop revs, I plan to have a bath. Now the Rayburn is kept lit, there is hot tap water. I envisage the stove as a domesticated volcano, providing scalding springs. I plan to lie, like a spa tourist, in a room of steam, with a glass of chilled apple wine, eyes closed, senses open, limbs succumbed

Millionaires, in some currencies. The value of things is not the same as the cost of things: that is not such a strange idea. Dog and I have returned this morning from a priceless walk- she flushed a deer from a thicket; intense, graceful, precise springs took it across the field before my ‘wow’ had finished forming. And, I have been interrupted from this writing by the crude brrring of our cheap pink plastic house phone, but it turns out pertinent. My mother and stepfather will be arriving tomorrow at lunchtime. Recently Mr came home with a bargain pack of steaks: cost, 89 pence sterling. I foresee steak sandwiches being popular: my mother says, knowing how low the budget is here, not to worry, to keep the rare treat for ourselves. But the value of the pack is greatly increased by sharing, so she is convinced. She understands, and is bringing bread. To know the value of things, of people, of moments, makes for a happy life. Not such a strange idea. But, does one actually hav

First edge of day pokes at the dark, first tendrils of winter creep in and pinch. Two forms of crane flies are appearing all over the house: six pointed star shapes stuck on surfaces, wiry dead maquettes rolling in drafts. They aren’t any trouble, unlike the houseflies, who care not, they never did have a sense of unwelcome. The Rayburn is lit. The hob kettle makes a whistle like a deflating balloon.  Big house spider scouts the kitchen. Tea steam gets its soothe on. Day spreads out wide and sunny. Blackberries picked, hot from a suntrap, burst on a surprised tongue. Heat haze haloes the stalky horizon; draws us out from shade and provision, to walk right through it. Two jets holler so low; I check my hair is not on fire. Dog’s tail skips one beat. We kind of laugh at each other. Last night, the rain’s static hiss on the windscreen, it seemed that winter would just turn up in a sudden lump. But here we are, skipped back, wide and sunny. 

{Some fiction for today- the prologue to the novel I'm  scratching out... Anya is not her real name. She is a real person, interesting, to me, as someone who epitomises the mining of strength from difficult circumstances. You don't have to suffer to find strength, that's not the message I want to promote. I loathe drama, actually, but for a story conflict is useful and since it all happened in real life it's a kind of recycling. The constant renewal of a determined life, that will be the crux of it. 1970 is the year, not the title. Finding a title has taken as long as writing the book, so I am being mysterious about it.} The curtains are closed. A breath of night air flares one edge, unnoticed. The windows always rattle. Ink scrawls, slowly, over paper. ‘ In the myth of Sisyphus, it says he is condemned to pushing a boulder up a mountain, watching it roll down again, and pushing it back to the top, he has to do this task forever. His story symbolis

Boy is talking and he knows I’m not fully engaged in listening. It’s a pre-agreed deal, that he may speak of anything but his mother’s mind is feasibly busy reconstructing aspects of modern life in hope of restoring loveliness and wonder to the whole of the world, working out whether a dark or a light wash should be next entrusted to the beautiful fantastic washing machine, remembering left from right at the roundabout, that sort of thing. He tells me if I need to listen. I am rapt attention then. But for now, I drive, Boy thinks aloud. I see the roses. Against a white wall, last sun is shining, it touches the flowers, the warm peach flowers, they glow; the warmth of it stays with me. The most beautiful thing: how I can hold the thought of the September rose, how this epitomises the idea of memory, the idea of resilience, the calm sweet balanced glow of remembrance. At the school meeting, the proposed trip to India is expensive, for us, not for what it has to offer. T

‘O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a
 king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams.’ [Act 2, Scene 2] Dog and one dreamy owner strike out over the thin pipes of the cut wheat field. So easy here, the space so open, thoughts roll out over the landscape like distant thunder. They don’t even form, just roll in fuzzy atmospheric waves, undulate like deepwater weed, dip through elemental metaphors without care or constriction. So much space, with a bit of a run up, flying seems perfectly feasible. Hmm, brain interrupts the reverie with a tap of common sense; the wind is likely to deposit you in the quarry. No flying today. Never mind, I console my flumped imagination, remember how last night a steam liner sailed you to the top of a mountain and there was a coffee pot that never ran out? Dog and one whimsical owner scamper round the haystack, laughing. They find a slab of wood, it looks like a pulled tooth. Rain comes, hits up that smell of da

Hoist the blinds, view from the window, on bared soil, crows as fat as seals rake up bugs. I note how we have woken to a world made of misted shades, to a subtle, evocative depth of field. Also, giggle: from where the pots are placed to catch the growing rays of sun, it seems that I use my car to grow basil. Outside, I sit at the table Mr made, working on an illustration. Look up to a sky, and if love were a clear uncomplicated shade of blue, here it is. And then the kettle must be filled and heated: here are our guests, our first official new house guests, welcomed in with steaming tea and bowls of bolognaise.  When bowls are empty and bellies are full, we traipse the lanes, dropping berries into tubs, pointing out items of note to inquisitive sisters. This is a hazel nut; honeysuckle flowers can be eaten; this is the skull of a fox; a quarry is where stone is cut from.  They are like kittens, two different kittens. One that pounces upon an answer, plays with it, d

Squirrel huffles along an oak branch, kicking a splat of water from leaves; as though he’d emptied his chamberpot down on the heads of the lane interlopers. Grumpy morning squirrels are not good shots, luckily. Above us also are spider zip wires, weighed down by mist. Later when the sun shines they might be diamond bunting… hmm, which is better: spiders on zip lines shouting ‘woooo yeah’ or the exuberant decadence of diamondiferous garlanding? Web lines in the back garden assist the tether of the tarpaulin, which is Mr’s poor substitute for a shed. Today he finishes making a picnic bench from pallets and wood scraps. The spiders are no help with the carpentry but will set up a fly patrol around the table. Perhaps they will join our picnics; bring a plate of fly wraps; a jug of moth smoothie. (I’m alive to spiders in particular today. Thinking of our godson, who is four years old exactly and an apprentice Spiderman. Spiderman in Wellington boots, blowing out his bir

Under the mist a steamroller squishes fresh road surface. Under our feet, flinty little chippings to be marvelled at. And my fingers are cold, I tell Mr; the autumn is cooling, I feel it. Against the mist, blockish bovine shapes observe our passing. The bullocks are curious; packed solid with brisk curiosity, crowding at the gate. At the edge of the tar sprayed lane, slugs venture; only one that I see is crossing the unfamiliar terrain, the rest recoil; it’s the first time I’ve witnessed slugs in uproar. Before work, I smell of sun lotion and fresh air. I sit and draw careful lines: flowers growing from a grave pile of rocks. Our shy neighbour calls through the hedge- would we like some green beans? She hands them through a small gap of hazel while we discuss the merits of a petrol mower. After work, the night air has a zesty slice of ice to it. Mist hides the road, we believe, and that seems to keep the road firmly in existence, whereas fields have blurred to impossible

Girl models one of Capability's hats; I am wearing Girl's hat, and writing something like a diary This is a series of extracts from my real diary, not fiction, which I am revisiting to find out how I came to be here (hence the cartography of the title) and why I am so clever at being happy. The main points so far are that I actively choose to be happy; to find what is genuinely positive about a situation rather than grimace and bear it; that I notice and therefore appreciate my surroundings, that I do ask myself questions to be sure that the path I follow is the right one for me. None of our internal maps are likely to be identical but there may be something in the drafting process that can help in the discovery of happy places. Here I am, aged 24- lugging my youthful notebook around college. “5 th June 1994 Capability F Sequin’s 21 st birthday. The question I want to ask myself every day is: Is this my life? I use writing to be sure of my path, to so

Beady birds string the electric wires. Either side of Dog’s head an ear is in full flight. I press over the chunky treads of tractor, listening. Cut sticks of rapeseed respond with a percussional plink, while hollow wheat stalks ring like wind instruments. We play to the sky, which looks to be dissolving, into the dip the river inhabits; out of sight it disperses, into the bumpy flow of the Tamar, taking our music with it; takes it all the way to the ocean. Fish will hear the earth sing. There are many wheat fields so I use the marker of the church spire to keep direction. Dog jumps straw hurdles until she lies belly up at the field edge, steaming, and has only the energy to flick her tail. While she cools her core, a palmful of blackberries travel one by one into my mouth. I can’t see the spire from here. We could easily be lost, and not mind about it at all. 

Almost how the garden looked today Mr cuts the grass. I kick my flip flops under the pampas, to keep shady, and walk around the garden with Rabbit. He favours the perimeters; nips off the tips of blackberry shoots that have escaped the brutish mower. My washed hair is drying in the sun, absorbing the rich light. The lawn I admire as manicured. Rabbit has his harness, the red one with the gold bell, and matching lead. Leaky hosepipe sounds like a water feature; a long tumble of water over imaginary marble steps. We require a statue, I say to myself, so that Rabbit and I may take a turn about it, and speak of it later over dinner with dear friends. I shall tell them that I wore the long cotton skirt with the rose print; the darling rose print; and so admired the pastoral composure of the astutely cultivated fields.  Dog and Rabbit share some shade: taken before the lawn was chopped, one should add

Yesterday when Baby ran in our garden she held out her palms to the beat of the sun. Today she waves as starlings flock, as we cross the cut field following the whirling tail of Dog. The sky is damp more than it is any particular colour. Baby studies the birds; they gather on a wire, fall like confetti into staccato winds. A slug dark with purpose seems lost amongst dry stalks. The ground curves down to thick green hedges. On skin, air leans close, whispers indecipherable sounds. Baby turns her head, from one edge of field to the other, seeking the source of the murmur. She looks to the earth, she looks to the heavens. She looks into her grandmother’s eyes and smiles with the semblance of someone who has recalled a thing of extraordinary import. I scoop her up like sifted gold; we run with Dog, laughing and laughing. 

Autumn starts hot. Heat flares in the lanes, swells the hedge fruit. Reach around the orb spiders; pluck warm berries. Half ripe tang jumps a skip into a step. In the wheat field a yellow machine waddles. Thatch lines steam behind it. At the gatepost where the dead fox has dropped, bones bounce sunlight back through straggly grass. Silence: but for footsteps, but for the preoccupied machine, but for the contemplative chewing of cattle. Tilted head holds no thoughts, only acknowledges sun on skin. In sighs, wordless ordinary worries disperse. Later, the kitchen fills with rice scent, coffee burbles, the twist of wine pouring. The sky moves from milky opal to pale dark. A flat moon disk slots into cloud. Pale seeps away; peaceable darkness remains .