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Cotton Cloud

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I pegged a pale wash to the line  before work. I worried  about a stain on my white shirt  it's a shirt, only, a length of cotton stitched  cotton that was grown from seed picked and handled to the loom  woven, bought, cut, made, sold, handed on.  I should not take any presence for granted.  Then I remember that to care for a thing  might not mean to worry over it.  The sun will shine. Blotches fade, or not.  I will still like my shirt. It blows rounded on the line, not unlike  a pegged cloud. Loganberry Jam: delicious! Must remember to wear an apron for the next batch though :-) 

The View From Buddha's Tub

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Inch high pomegranates perky in their individual pots: lettuce, revived, has a shine like slivered mineral, like banded malachite displayed backlit in a local museum. Labels have dropped from repurposed tins, they are rust dotted silver, nurturing life. A sequinned star that fell from a fairy grandchild's wand waves in the tops of tomato forestation. Under the intoxicating white flowered lime with many curious orange and peppery eyes squats a nasturtium. Laughing Buddha, missing his left hand, still is jolly in his resting tub: all the green, the colour splots, they are magic, treasure, cheer.

The River Speaks

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Widdershins we walked, on the Longest Day, late, as the sun descended to a bed of pink cloud. Around the lanes we walked, the lanes that lay low in the mountains of hedge. Dog's whitish fur was bouncing back light: our trotting glow worm. Through the tree shadows cow cries came, and dinosaur snorts that startled Dog.  Since then the feverish time is spent, hot, melted without a pot. Boy finishes his exams: is making frenetic plans for moving on: The Novel is ready to start rounds of editing: this is all change. We do not know what will happen. Our little world turns. But in the hedges bloom meadowsweets and wild rose. The path to the river is light and shade together. The river water muddied and I cannot see my feet. The cooling feel on these sore feet is calming and then the way the light is playing on the surface, and the smallest glimpse of rock: it seems to be inviting me in.  The river has something to convey.  Blind feet slide, several times slip, no ha

Octopus Garden Soup

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Gronmere emerges from the relative dark of her writing room. Chapter Ten is done. She knows the missing element for Chapter One. Little Granddaughter lies on the sun blanket. 'Gronmere,' she says, 'I'm sooo hot. I need to make some soup to calm down.' Gronmere understands. She fetches the bowls and the ladles. Into multiple pools of finest hosepipe water are dropped exquisite ingredients such as daisies, buttercup, grass heads and fleabane; in stirs one beaming octopus, some seashells, magical flavourings of coloured chalk. Behind this activity Blackbird hop-hops. He has more cheek than even a magpie, making him a main suspect in the Great Cherry Heist. But since he also, without even needing to be asked, has taken up the job of diligent slug patrol, he is forgivable. Gronmere smiles, surveys her empire. After a stern word, the butternut has begun to swell its fruit. Courgettes grow podgy like cherub legs. Rocket is running to seed. Basil fills it

Beans And Birthdays

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Friday: Lawhitton: All day the wind blows. Even in the lea of the house the broad beans are laid flat; sheltered stems twisted and snapped. Some are salvageable, the rest: compost or dinner. At night we see the moon too is cleft, and one half lingers in a pale sky. Saturday: Ilchester: Hailstones were forecast. They must have melted in the unforeseen heat. Everyone sits in the shade of the tent, where pompoms sway and birthday balloons drift like lazy animals. The children herd them up. On the table is a summer rainbow of fruit, a princess castle made of cake. Steaming hot children pile down the new slide, snacks in hand and laughing. Bubbles stream, some big enough to trap grown men. Baby Girl, one whole year old, claps her hands. 'Remember at the wedding,' we say, 'she was a bump!' Little Grandson speaks to the girls, he says 'Well: my friend: my friend is nine.' He leaves them to absorb this momentous social advantage: he has a cardbo

Cows, Clouds, Chairs And Cheese

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Wednesday afternoon: Cloud is foam on a dark sky: blows like spray. Wind in the broad oaks is wild music. Everything shakes. Even the dense perfume of the lyme trees is blown out across the field where the cows, overwhelmed, have lain down. In the garden, under the Perspex arches, heat gathers, pressures like a pulse. Thursday morning: Clouds are tall ships, moored, out on a Mediterranean blue. Wind furls. One small girl lies on a rug, counting aeroplanes, telling a dog not to chew stones, telling pirate tales to a plastic crocodile. Thursday afternoon: The renovator smiles. Her hair is dusted red from rubbed off rust. The first coat of paint was rushed, because of the quick darkening of sky. The rain did not transpire. The chair frames are drying in the back of her car. Weather can change. The brush is resting in white spirit. She forgets about the brush. She sits at the picnic table with her granddaughter: they make stories for aeroplanes. Where's

Magic Three

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A calendar year begins in winter, stark and spiced. Spring pokes through, budded, pretty. The bloom is biggest in summer. Even the late to leaf ash trees are feathered in green, now, in the year's second change of season. The hedgegrass has gone wild: gobbled up the village name; licks at the speed limit signs. Wild strawberries and feral loganberries take warmer and deeper hues. Flowers spray colour everywhere and the roses droop with scent. ' I love it!' Little Granddaughter greets her third year: swirls in a princess dress, swings a plastic tool kit. Her mother calls her 'Princess Fix-It.' Gronmere has painted her a tree mural: she loves that too. In the garden her first sunflower opens its warm yellow face and is loved.

Fruits And Flowers

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Monday Evening: Bundled solar lights in the polytunnel give tropical leaves an artic-blue slant. Ten slugs are plucked from the soil: moist bits of muscle that contract on touch. They have no concept of ownership, nor of work: their lives seem harmlessly simple, apart from this misunderstanding between us. They eat our work before it fruits: their boneless bodies are fed to nesting birds. Wood smoke moves through the house, startled up by the wine blips. After a good day's work, feet rest up and the gardening books are open. Tuesday Morning: Everything green gets bigger and bigger. Lawnmowers are pushed to keep the grass from swallowing all of civilisation. The butternut squash might form its own government. We edge the vast leaves, placatory.  'The feed is working,' we agree. Underneath, the spinach is finding a way, the sweet peppers seem content. Over at the shed the roof seems watertight. 'Exciting times,' we agree. There is still a prob

Bank Holiday Family Meet

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The last tent to arrive is put up in laps of drizzle, next to the old fashioned frame tent, facing the giant ex-display bargain. The last tent is a modest dome, suitable for short stay camping. But not, it turns out, as waterproof as it should be. Rain is sieved by the flysheet: the big tent has the same problem. Ad hoc towels soak up the worst of it. There's a moment that will be familiar to most damp campers, where everyone considers giving up. Once the indoor picnic is spread; oh my heavens, it goes on for miles; that moment is consigned. It's not so cold, after all, once we've found some dry socks and this fine dining. It's only one night, after all. What's a little rain on your olives? We will eat and talk; I'm on Chapter Ten, I can tell them; and Little Grandson will stay up late playing Uno, looking sooo casual in his dinosaur onesie. He loves his cousins and his baby brother: but they are rubbish at card games thus far. The morning is made f

Of Words And Swords And Chicken's Milk

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'Gronmere,' Little Granddaughter says. [Transitioning the name previously spoken as Nam-ma. ] 'My flowers are getting Very Big in the [a pause here: aware of the word 'polytunnel' uncertain how to turn it to sound] shed. Very Big.' 'Yes.' Gronmere is blowing up a balloon, the sort that can be folded into symbolic shapes. 'What shall we make?' [Expects the answer 'a flower.'] 'Milk for a chicken.' 'Milk for a chicken? Made from a balloon?' 'Yes.' [Laughs, as though Gronmere's puzzlement is surely faked for her amusement.] Outside, a continent of cloud drifts by. Rain flattened grass eases vertical. The lawn hops with happy blackbirds. Leaves of the iris wave, spear straight. 'Sword fight?' Gronmere suggests.

Weather Report, Late Spring

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Monday Afternoon: In the polytunnel a sunflower swells close to bloom. Peas climb and look merry; something in the curl of those tendrils: how they reach to the world. Leaves on a butternut squash, squash a few stray spinach plants and the leeks, encroached, will need a rescue soon. The tomatoes have their own cul-de-sac, opposite the nursery shelves that are stocked in repurposed pots. In here it simmers with life, it brews up out of the soil, this amazing overboil of leaf and frond. And even outside, it is hot. Washing is crisp on the line. Monday Evening: After the storm, after the lightening bolts horizontal over the road ahead, after the one roll of thunder heard; the long deep roll over the moortop; a looking glass puddle at the roadside shows us the stilled sky, the tree branches leafed and quiet. Tuesday Morning: Dark swarms; washing is unpegged from the line. Squares of yellow and blue fold over the wire clotheshorse instead. Under the lean-to roof

Dersu Uzala

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There is brainsteam (imaginary, vivid as a scald) hissing from my ears: sign of a fine writing binge: also indicates an apt time for a break, before reality is hazed out. Dog is pacing. She has fulfilled her sofa sleep quota. 'Walk?' I have asked the right question. The lanes splash blossom; creamy foamy Cow Parsley umbrels of blossom. Blue and white and pink and yellow shine below: bells, worts, orchids, cups. Split tailed summer birds dive and the cows are sun bathing, between bouts of warm heavy rain. All day it fast switches: rain, sun, both full. The rainbows are thick with colour. Back in the little office room, words arrive and are typed down. Between words, weeding and watering and the planting-on is done. And de-slugging and the whipping here and there of wet washing. Hedge birds sing, just of ordinary things. Dog follows, puts her nose over the grass: all seems well. All the windows and doors are open to the scents of rain and bluebells. In th

Flash Blind And Plum Times

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Flash Blind On Thursday April's Alphabet Challenge is completed: I look it over, satisfied. This years tactic of the random word choice proved easy in that there was always a subject available for each letter; difficult in that I don't write from prompts. It was a shove outside the comfort zone. Any exercise performed outside this zone gives maximum benefit for effort: I feel toned and ready for May's challenge: a (fingers crossed) final push of Finishing The Novel. This morning and more is taken up with a slug war (fighting back for the basil and melons with salt and garlic: smells better than other wars) and driving Boy to Places. Later this afternoon, with Dog, walking, down by the river: not the desk time I had envisaged, too beautiful to argue with: all the trees gain leaf weight, the hedges swell, the summer birds arrive. Time, then, to ready oneself for going out to work, to let go of what has not been achieved with the day. We are on the doorstep, abo

Zwieback Finale

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Last day of the Alphabet Challenge: my dictionary random selection offers me a snack. Zwieback, filling the niche between toast and biscuit, is an egg rich loaf that is sliced and further baked: zwieback means 'twice baked.' Cinnamon would be a nice addition, although the recipe I looked up had nutmeg. All Recipes: Sugar Zwieback Today is not for baking, there is too much garden work to do, so I'm leaving this link here to get back to when the next batch of planting and repotting is done. For my finale, I have put all of my randomly selected words into one sentence, and found that there is a kind of story in it, because every sentence has a sort of implied story to it, because story underpins everything we do, because more than bones or dust, story is our existence and our legacy. No wonder we are drawn to this reading and writing lark! April 2014 A-Z Finale Sentence: After an a bysmal b anister c onclusion at my d omicile lead me to e xpostulate, dr

Yggdrasil And The Line In The Clavicle

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The name of the tree that binds heaven, earth and hell. In the Old Norse tongue it was spelt Yggdrasill, apparently, but the significance of this extra consonant is not explained. No pronunciation guide in the Writer's Dictionary: perhaps there is a companion book, a Reader's Dictionary? Significance of the tree and of the binding is apparent, though all these interpretations have a personal element. Heaven, earth and hell, as bound by Yggdrasil and regarded by myself, form a set. They represent life and consequences. They represent the present moment, potential futures; a body of knowledge and experience passed on by all the souls that have lived. Further ruminations are interrupted by a phone call that leads to a family trip to hospital with Girl and Little Granddaughter, who has fallen from a chair in a hard-floored kitchen and broken her left clavicle. We all look at the x-ray, at a fine line in pale etched bone. Girl is blinking tears, they are ruining her

X.N.

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On this final week of the Alphabet Challenge, I have reached for The Oxford Writer's Dictionary, which gives a writer a fast and easy aid to usage, style and spelling. X is a tricky letter but it covers some interesting stuff like xylography, the printing of wood block books. However the random choice is… x.n. I have never heard of it, unsurprisingly, as it means 'without the right to new shares.' It belongs to a tricksy financial world ( Lord of the Rings reference: I'm thinking of Mordor) which is in a galaxy far far from here ( Star Wars , thinking Death Star.) On a disinterested Google search, Xn shows up as a chemical hazard code, meaning harmful, before it appears in a Reuters post about steel and stock markets. [Cue scrunched-face thinking moment.] I do not, actually, despise money. Currency is a sort of metaphor, where an object represents being equal in value to another, and often is composed of pleasant artifacts: notes and coins hold fascinatio

Black Belt Trials: Round Two And Always

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http://www.lonelyplanet.com/south-korea/seoul At Bristol Academy, 163A Church Road, Redfield, Bristol: It is crowded. While our nervous yet determined students are working up a sweat in the hall upstairs, I take a walk around St George's Park. It rains, light heavy, and snows cherry blossom. Over the pond each drop patters, sends out loops. Ducks waddle on the path. They all look as I pass: quack, contended. Nice weather for ducks. Chestnut trees have flowers that stack like wedding cakes. Spring is for beginnings. Summer to autumn for fruition, winter for the hack back to skeletal basics.  Spring is for beginnings…  There's something about the combination of a mass meeting of like minded people, the creative surge of nerves and knowledge (plus espresso) makes my brain splurge: before I have put a foot back to the Academy words are pinging. In the porch, simply conversing, words become attached to potential actions. Mr appears, from his hall upstairs perch. He is smil

Warwick Deeping: A Review

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It had been one of those days where the rain had given up and allowed the sun to prevail. There was a jangle of change in my pocket and some of the coins where even the shiny important sort: I was thinking perhaps I would treat myself to a beetroot or a bulb of smoked garlic, from the greengrocer in the White Hart Market. Across the tiny market lane the secondhand bookstore had a box of tired old books, three for a pound. Three books for a pound, irresistible: that's a fact. I found a David Lodge, a Bernard Cornwell, and a 1946 cotton covered hardback titled The Impudence of Youth. The author, the eponymous Warwick, had written quite a list, I saw, and something about the whole package had a pleasant feel to it. And I had enough pennies left over to purchase a bunch of celery. Settling outside for a read, the words were dated, and that was most of the charm of the piece. It had a mix of 'come on, there's a plot that needs to proceed' briskness and dis