The end of summer

The last August day
brings the first frost, light glitter
on the grey roof tops.

Weight

Separating eggs
for meringue, I imagine
one yolk's cold gold weight.

At least a haiku a day...

I've been a way a long time. More than 40 days have passed since the feast of St Swithin, and just as it didn't rain every day as promised, I didn't write every day either.

The myth is broken, or perhaps it was a curse.

Anyway, I am still a writer. And now I will start again. One day after one day after one day, raindrops strung on a powerline, trembling mirror pearls, for 80 days or more.

A long time ago I said I would write at least a line a day and more or less I did.
Now is the moment for something else, for a haiku, a perfect polished acorn, deceptively small, holding the force of an oak.

The tomatoes are ripening two by two, one for me and one for him, to balance on a bed of rocket like a bright round ruby.

Never give up on the sun...

This morning as I drive to work I decide that autumn has arrived and I think how there aren't enough words in the English language for all the shades of grey.

I even buy soup for lunch that burns my tongue with its unexpected heat.

But then, just when we had all written off summer, like a blue page ripped from a notebook, the sun comes back and reminds me that anything is possible.

To celebrate the abundance in our tiny garden I will write twice tonight.

Twice for the two tomotoes that turned from green to amber to red and then burst like plump balloons;
For the green beans that dangled like long earrings through the elegant railings;
For pearl after pearl of garlic, swollen proudly in their brown paper skins;
For the potaoes, precious stones, honest and gold.

Overheard in Sainsbury's

It's scone! (To rhyme with gone).

No its scone (to rhyme with own), otherwise there wouldn't be an e at the end.

As I push my trollley past the two shop assistants it makes me smile to hear English spelling being discussed at 4 o'clock on a rainy afternoon in the wine aisle.

I know my husband, who regularly despairs of spelling and who makes excellent scones, would be smiling too.

Rain

Does rain have a smell?

Or does it depend what it lands on, what it soaks into, like concrete or wool or tomato plants?

Today everything smells of rain. Everything is heavy with it, like my St Pancras station tiramisu, drenched in liquore.

Glue

Today in the supermarket in the middle of refurbishment I am looking for glue. I find it in an unlikely aisle by accident, just as another man is being shown the way to the same spot by a helpful assistant. It's obviously a good day for buying glue, whether you want the super stuff, like he does, or a just a stick, like I do.

Maybe its a day for putting old things back together or for sticking new things down- glitter and glossy paper, held still like a butterfly or a bright idea.

Balloons don't live forever

Yesterday in Leicester I saw a little boy lose a balloon. It sailed confidently into the sky, bright pink against dull grey, while his screams pierced the hearts of passers by.

I remember him again today, as I'm chopping eye-watering onions for a comforting soup, and I wonder what I would have done to console him if he'd been mine.

Would I have rushed to buy him another one, not quite the same, to quieten his cries?

Would I have wheeled him away in his push chair and decided that it was a good day to learn about loss?

Or would I have told him a story about the incredible adventures of the balloon that belonged to the air and to the eyes of everyone who saw it go by?

The secret life of wasps

Yesterday I heard on the radio that they had found the laregst ever wasps nest, wider than me and nearly as tall, in the loft of a country pub. All the way back home my mind is buzzing with wonder.

I think of the late night sounds of our house. Maybe we have the second biggest one nestled somewhere, which bursts into life when the lights are off, wasps dancing in the walls, wings whirring like the constant pulse of the fridge, swarming in the dark kitchen.

Solar Tsunami

Somewhere far away the surface of the sun is exploding into fireworks for us but I will miss the display from my earth bound bed, under a duvet of clouds, and can only imagine it in my dreams.

Yesterday is missing like a day of summer that should have been.

But this morning the sun finally broke through the heavy grey weight of clouds and gave me a shiver of light down my spine.

There's more than one way to stuff a courgette

With two recipe books propped open on the kitchen table, both our instincts and an egg to bring everything togther, we come up with our own way of stuffing a generous courgette, il siluro, the missile, as my husband has been calling it.

Now, two zucchine boats sit side by side in the oven, one slightly deeper than the other, their cargo of garlic and beef and other good things, bubbling, making my stomach rumble like a far away sea.