Water Cress Soup

I LOVE stars, says Grace. And so do I. Tonight they're phenomenal. Moonless, with The Milky Way pushing through. How I love to share the wonder of all this with my children, to hold on to the naive awe that I felt when I was a boy, which has never really left me. Look at all the shapes, Grace says. Ah.. the shapes. Therein lies the story of our species, but not tonight darling. Earlier we went for a walk down the stream, to the little stone arched bridge where water cress grows. I've noticed that it flourishes twice a year, now being the second time. I take off my shoes and socks and step into the crystal clear water that I like to drink. Brook trout dart away at our approach. Grace paddles, gloriously fearless of the squidgy bank and the watery life that lives there. The cat has followed us so we have to make sure he knows when we're returning otherwise he'll get lost again and I'll have to come out and call for him at midnight. Cats get a bit silly when they're too far from base. This one does, anyway. It's dusk. The shadows are lengthening. Autumn cool. I grab a large bunch of water cress to make soup with later on. Before going back to the house we pick half a jug full of blackberries.

Tidiness

I'm not the tidiest of people. But lately, as I've tackled the flotsam of dirty plates, crumby breadboards, jammy knives, half opened cans of tomatoes, old teabags, and so on, and so on, that seem to wash up several times a day on our kitchen work surfaces, I've begun to understand tidy people a bit more. And as I've picked off the clutter, bit by sticky bit, and a semblance of space and order has momentarily returned before some child dumps a cereal bowl or the cat leaves muddy paw marks, I've even found myself wondering whether I'd develop OCD. If life was finally to become little more than a losing battle against dirt and chaos why not embrace the challenge and become obsessive about it. Wipe your feet. Don't spill it. Clear your things. Whose is that!? Give me order in the chaos. Give me back some control before I finally capitulate to the onslaught of stuff.