Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

First pans on: no time for photographing after this! The first thing the grown ups say is ‘Remind me again why I’m doing this?’ The team leaders are thinking of the 5am wake ups, the number of times one child can lose a shoe, or need the toilet, or answer your question about where did you put your shoe with an anecdote about a hamster. (The shoe will be in the first place they looked for it, but not until you look for it too. Shoes are magic like that.) This year I am not team leading: I am on the kitchen crew. I don’t know what it is that I should be wondering why I’m doing it, it’s never been done by me before. Everyone should have a try at kitchen crew in order to fully appreciate the work that goes on to get the masses fed and the dishes washed. It starts and ends with heavy lifting. I’ve seen the bespoke field oven and the fry table and the gas bottles in place every year and never thought they were easy to shift about. Closing gap between knowledge and experi

Here she is. Petal pink, goosey fatted She had been dreaming of light A sky light A sky opened up for her Into air she swam; part aquatic part rosebud grown from the warm bed of her mother - humidity nothing for her but reminiscence - Her father breathes deep, for joy barely, for amazement She breathes: is moving - one thing to dream of light another to meet it - The singular miracle closes her eyes Sleep, sleep will make sense of it They will wake up, of course The new parents. To look at her. They have been dreaming of this light too. Here she is.

This well earned smirk, caught on film. The car slides to a halt. All systems fail. A few hours later I am happy because I can move my head. But I was all ready very happy. These events are not directly connected. Or they are. Shall I begin with a beginning? The Chap, known then as Boy; although his sister being seven years his senior often led to the absentminded title of Maid, and I would pretend I had said Mate; since the age of four, had wanted to be a carpenter. Had his own tools, collected from birthdays, from approving relatives. Had graduated to power tools. Eight years an intended carpenter, this Boy, until the age of 12 brings him to a bigger school and a reconsideration. Carpentry will be a hobby, now, he says, he might be bored with it otherwise. He will become a Naval Officer instead. Okay. Mum is fine with supporting her children. Some things like committing atrocities she would not support, but this urge seems humanitarian. He mentions (in this order)

We say, if he doesn't put his toys away, does that mean he no longer cares for them? They could be gathered up easily in a bin bag, bundled to a charity shop? I’ll get new ones at Christmas, says Grandchild 1. Okay then. (But maybe he remembers that time at the Eden Project when Granma took his ice cream away?) He tidies some stuff, it makes his arms slow and heavy. Somewhere on tv are his parents, dots in a damp field, best-friend dots drinking cider up and watching bands, holding hands, eating good food, good simple important stuff. We look for the blue tent. There are a lot of blue tents. Humph. Grandchild 4 has a bump, holds his hands up for Grandad. Gets cuddles. Comfort. We go to run in the park, the one that is just grass. It will be boring, Grandchild 1 huffs. They have races. He is the fastest. Look at this tree he says, it’s tiny, but it’s a tree! He finds a dock leaf for his nettle sting. The nettles are taller than him. He looks up, sees the sk

Homewards, driving, the film of existence is over exposed. Gold-glare where the road should have been. It has a thickness, this light, a liquidity. We are swallowed in it, guessing the route. We guess close enough, close enough to get home unscathed. Half a moon hangs in the sky there, a lace clad performer waiting for applause. All the blue deepens. The sun dips to a spotlight, gives the moon centre stage. A bottle of champagne crouches in the fridge. A note from Houseguest Ben, out at his Leavers’ Day celebrations, is propped over the oven: I had seen him earlier, suited and booted, off to have fun. We are to have a glass of champagne, he says, a thank you, he says: if there’s any left could he have another glass, it is rather nice. A toast we drink, to all of our children and all of their guests. Whatever else is achieved, is a script to be interpreted, is our encore.

Here are photographs of the revisited former Fin Whale, with apologies to anyone who finds this gruesome. It would be more fabulous to see it live and swimming wild. Grandchild 2, although impressed by the size of bones, mostly found it stinky. 

There was a time I was smaller than this. Barefoot, summer-frocked, home-cut hair. If were lucky, smelling like cheap ice pops. It was one of those times I followed my father along the seawall. The storm had passed, it was warm, the tide halfway. My father, who photographed everything; I don’t recall him holding a camera. Everything I remember smelt like clean salt and beach heated seaweed; perhaps because it was fresh. The whale was fresh. We were empty handed. This memory opens like a box of that fresh sea air, streams out, tidal, blue-green. We are tiny, perched over a rock. Below us the whale carcass looks, mournful, out to the ocean. It cannot go home. It is oblivious to my awe, to being an  object of awakening. The oceans are That Big. Nature is immense. Above us, sky, space. We are tiny, perched in time, perched in space. Wow. I was four, maybe five years old. Forty years ago. And here, on Wansonmouth Beach, I am walking, barefoot. My daughter cuts my hair and I fo

Tractors rumble, back and forth to the field where a wind turbine will be installed. The dirt they carry has an orange cast, looks iron rich, but today they dig the earth to harvest the weather. Some loathe the turbine blades whirring in the landscape: not me. A blend of sleek futuristic styling and eco friendliness, to a girl who would live in a cave but keep the wifi? A cool wind swoops, the sun plays blaze and hide, clouds take interplanetary sizes. Our seedlings cling in the ground, dazzled. The taller plants only know that they have made it this far, no one is an expert. The peas have an exuberant way of growing: throw as they grow and curl and climb, experimental, without regrets. Like a tumble of pea blossoms, our grandchildren at play; Grandchild 3 has her second birthday: the diary is checked because it seems she has been here longer: but do we remember not having any of them? How the present can alter one’s perception of the past! Grandchild 3 has a fine sense of purpo

A working wheel on your wheelbarrow makes a difference. Three loads I had brought with the flat tyre, and satisfaction had balanced difficulty. But with a pumped new tyre, nine loads flew up from the horse field today. The newest raised bed is nearly filled, is covered with pots where we decide what will take root where. A working wheel is better, though the lack of it enhanced the joy of having. I am learning to love ease. To sit back after the work and admire. In the polytunnel the squashes and the melons have their handmade frames, and I have a mug of coffee.

Summer’s first month arrives with its two weather predictions: a drought will come - or relentless rain. The first thirteen hours hold dry, though the air is heavy-humid and the wind skitters in the manner of an overtired child.  Down comes the windbreak, blown flat. Grandchild 2 breaks from learning to skip. It’s cold. We go indoors to eat peanut butter. (She is tired from her weekend party. She loves all her presents. She loved the candle on her cake, it was a number four. She loved the cake but she didn’t eat any except the horn of the pink icing unicorn and a sugar daisy.) A small storm visits our cottage gardens. Next door’s gazebo is brought down, bunting flapping on the grass like bright triangular fish. Our tallest broad bean is bent over the side of the raised bed, it looks seasick. Later today I will tie it back up.  We never know the weather, I will say, until our faces are in it, and however set it seems, it always changes. The plants all know this, of c

Houseguest Ben arrives at the door of the polytunnel. ‘There’s a bird in the bathroom,’ he reports. ‘One you know?’ I ask. (This is not a play on slang terminology for female persons.) ‘It’s not the chaffinch.’ He laughs, glances at the hedge. (Ben was stalked by a chaffinch one memorable afternoon. It is this bird to which I refer.) This unknown avian visitor is a summer bird, too quick for him to catch: I come down to see if I will have more luck. ‘You’re beautiful,’ I say. Dark glossy plumage with a red throat, sleek split tail, pointed wings; sat on the shower rail, head at a listening tilt. A compliment is what it has been waiting for, for as the words are uttered it flies out of the window, leaving a tidy curl of dropping on the bath lip. Next door’s garden hosts a teddy bear’s picnic party. A swallow has nipped in to use our bathroom. What else might happen? The new car is out there somewhere still: Southampton, the man on the phone had puzzled, our cars co

Saturday: Garden: wheeled up topsoil from the heap in the horse field with a borrowed barrow, ours needed a new tyre.  Mr went to buy a new one, twice: first the wrong size then the right, then the pump broke.  We have a new flat tyre. It’s closer to perfection than it was. The newest raised bed stinks with rotted grass. Saturday evening: drove over the Severn Bridge, squinted at sun-bloom on the wide river, admired the geometry of cables, the bold shadows. Arrived in time to watch theatrical acts compete on various televisual shows. Eager and numerous as the flies on our rotted grass: this is what it is to be an artist my dears.  Just be the fly you want to be. The six year old who was staying up late decided she would rather be a dog. She would go to bed, but she would be practicing her bark, quietly; but her brother had already woken from his own coughing.  Everyone went to bed later than intended. Sunday: morning brought rain. While the earth d

In Southampton, there is a brand new car. A mid-spec economical white because that’s the least expensive colour car… It is waiting for paperwork. Just routine paperwork. Finance is approved. What will happen? Life will be buzzed with a paintwork gleam, though it’s the same life; this is good, we are grand fans of our lives here. The financial commitment makes us scared, this is not a change. Money worries pelt us with such consistency, we should have learned to dodge by now. But we’ve compromised: we have become bold. A few more bits of paper will move and make the car get on a truck, to be brought to us. We will go to the garage and drive it away. A gesture of faith in ourselves? Yes, we say. Yes. Meanwhile the garden grows. We toil to help it; dig holes, fill holes, fit raised beds. Hand feed our seedlings. The picnic table drops into weathered pieces. We sit at particular angles to keep safe, bowls of rice steaming, birds flinging in bursts of food finding, territ

The old red car did not pass the MOT. Too many things to fix so we had to let it go. I had turned out all the bits of shell and pebble, untangled the travelling charm from the rear view mirror. Wondered how many hours would add up to equal time spent viewing the world in that back looking glass. Breathed in the earth-salt squalor, the mould, the spills of coffee. Heard myself singing. Ouch. It is only a material thing, a car, no matter how immersed, how we feel our fibres are joined. Everything is a shell, I think: me too, I am made of stuff, so what I feel for the car is a universal compassion, personified, made specific to my story. I lent life to it, and now I’m taking it back. The thought of it crushed was saddening. It was a reprieve when the young mechanic asked, could he have it: I signed it over, handed him a key. So, no car, for me, for a moment. While I think and headache over figures, projections of cost and risk, while I long to live in a hedge. Why c

7 May, 2015 Rain lingered but it could not rain: the sky was so full of birdsong, there was no room. Only sunlight could shine through that clear mass of sound. Lawnmowers and birds, singing, and somewhere above, an aeroplane; a ruffle of foliage from an indulgent breeze. All the weekend noise: speeches from Churchill on VE Day, knives and forks and spoons scooping up pie and mash and suet puddings, the band were fun, people were dancing and trying to dance; the hoot of grandchildren wrestling on a lawn while the barbecue spits and somebody catches a ball, the glee sounds of toddlers with chocolate cake; makes us smile to ourselves. Striding around the garden, planning doom and repellence for pests, planting seeds; smiling.  8 May, 1945 9 May, 2015

It rains. Car park trees hemmed in, captive. Symbolic of a lessened world? If the roots go rogue, then what? Dream of growing beans up the sides of the prisoner trees, of everyone planting and making car parks futile. A power of fertility. More rain, in spite of the blossoms and pretty leaf: autumn weather. Under the copper beeches, light and water drops. Nearly a rainbow. The leaves are russet-rosé. Under the copper beeches you can bathe in a sparkling pink Raise a toast to autumn: To future harvests.

Friday Here begins the last calendar month of Spring. Half-fledged pheasants flee car wheels. Has the frost left? It had clung to the land for too long. This morning’s air is warmly damp. The hedges have grown lace, kept colour. To the beach we traipse; one Granma, one grandchild, one grandchild’s friend, one dog. We are lucky with weather. Mild-damp until the ice creams are eaten up. Fat drops smack on the way home, burst on the bonnet. The girls sleep. At home we hear giggling, and the crunch of apples bitten. They watch a film, they say, ‘Oh I love that. Do you love that?’ Anything with sequins rocks. Grandma agrees. Evening comes, it brings wine. Saturday A garden day. The barrow rolls badly, inner tube beyond repair. Another expense: leafed green growth, the recompense. Future dinners, medicines, sweets, inebriations, perfumery, decorations; the story of our year wiggles up, shakes in the wind. This is the year we added a scarecrow and all the arches need