the gale

It's blowing a gale outside. In the darkness of the night, gusts of wind are stretching branches till they crack. Inside we hear the whistling of the wind. It rattles windows, sneaks into the cracks and makes our house creak and moan. I am scared of this storm. From when we woke this morning until night time came, this tempete has been shaking our bones. It has blown this day from sunshine to grey hail to rain, dark inky clouds smothering the sky. The children sleep fast and I am too awake, too lively, too itchy, too much with this blowing wind. Perhaps I will  join the storm, danse in the chaos of the freezing gusts of rain. Let the water beat against my skin and laugh as the sky groans. Or perhaps I too will snuggle under warm  blankets and soft, soft sheets and drift into a dream. The gale outside is blowing, blowing, blowing. I hope that by the morning it is gone.

lunch

We ate an omlette for lunch today. It was a bright burnt yellow. The colour of the sun. The eggs came from Marie-Annick on the market. They are hidden treasures, kept beneath the huge wooden stand, gold dust. Softly boiled the white is firm and silky, the yolks a molten lava of cadmium orange. These are the eggs of my childhood. The eggs my tiny child's fingers would touch hard and warm beneath the soft feathers of a bird in the dark bitter stinking darkness of the chicken shed. Eggs, a mystery revealed. I remember being 6 and the first time we ate our own eggs, with our own bread and our own butter, made with the milk from our Fresian cow Steady. Sweet and salty, brown bread like cake, spread pale and creamy, dripping with rich dark yellow.

bear

There is a bear in the woods, standing in the white snow, sleeping in a cave, ripping red flesh with blood-stained teeth. The bear is called Nathanial. He has long, shaggy hair, thick and brown. He's a heavy carnivorous animal. In the sky the Great Bear and the Little Bear twinkle in rich constellations. Nathanial loves the stars. At night, in the winter, as his breath leaves white puff clouds against the dark liquid blue, he ponders upon the cosmos.  

awordatext

the writer will randomly find a word in the dictionnary and write a text based on the aforementioned group of letters

the rain

Today the rain fell as I drove home. At times so heavy that all the road was blurred into a messy grey  puddle. This morning it landed on my windscreen like hundreds of cold fat tears. There is a gale blowing outside as I write. Gusts of wind strong enough to break tender leaves from trees and push human bodies along the street. Inside I can hear the buzz of the television, the baby crying, the tumble dryer turning. I had a satisfying day today - ticked boxes, underlined words, spoke to people and made interesting plans. There are times when moving into action is as satisfying as a big bite of cheese, mayo, tomato and gherkin sandwhich.

sunshine

We blissed out in the sun today. On the promenade there was a March breeze, but sat on a bench facing the sea  out of the shade it was mild and comfortable. We watched the walkers walking, the joggers jogging and rollerskaters gliding. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the sun.  Spring. The creamy yellow first heat of daffodils caressed my cheeks. I could just make out the ding-ding of the sail boats in the marina, the gentle woosh of a wave. I almost fell asleep for a second. Warm heat.  

the wind

The wind was bitter today. Here by the sea the gusts are sharp, cutting through wool, cotton and jean and until they have chilled every 200 bones in your body. This is wind from which you cannot hide. It is a sour, painful experience. A polar easterly which has wrapped itself round icebergs and dressed in frost. It is not yet a gale but blasts and blows us across the town. It lingers in our pockets and in the nape of our neck like an unwanted kiss from a sweaty-palmed man.

the unbearable lightness of being

I am dreaming of tomorrow of a tidy house and  the soft cheek of my babe and time and making soup and listening to the radio drinking a second cup of coffee and writing and unpacking and putting my holiday purchases into my drawers and drifting in mundanity and the bliss of being and laughing with the eldest as we walk to school and work forgotten in my briefcase in my car and thinking of writing and imagining another world and folding unfolding dividing and joining and space and time being here and now and my head not rushing five months into the future and holding the softness of time and suddenly i understand the unbearable lightness of being.

back

We were thrown through the sea last night. Nestled in our boat, the waves tossed us back and forth, seaweed winding it's way into our hair and mermaids whispering lullabies into our frightened ears. The cabin was stiflingly dark and with every shudder of the gale the sweet sound of a car alarm greeted our song. I lay in the noisy silence of the witching hour and, for once, did not imagine death. I waited as the seconds ticked by, grew into minutes, into hours. Numbers piling upon numbers, until the night was done and the dawn rose. Night. I could not hear my babes breathe. The morn came and a golden light lit the waves edge. As we drank bitter coffee, chewed bread and crunched on cereal the walled city loomed on the horizon. Land ahoy. We slid between the rocks and the islands of the ragged, unfinished coastline.