Today was a bit of an upsydownsy, not in anyway distressing, no interjections, no road blocks, no awkwards, no tricky altercations , no big stuff, none of that. Just a confusulate . Explain, I tell myself, finger wagging like a headmistress from the past and a very long ago one. I can see her, see that finger, how interesting, how damaging.

I decide to make something. Sweet Chilli Jam. I’ve made it before and it is delicious, but in my life it would need to be frozen for acres because there’s only me here. I can, I know give wee jars to those who may well swell with a wide smile and then let it go to mould. I still make it, for the pleasure of the making. It thinks me, as I get this, the process. This is me. I have always known this, held this. Those nights of tricky lambing under flickering dodgy lights at 4 am in the snowscape, of birthing in the freeze of a stone cold byre, pulling her into that cold, swiping muceous from her mouth, blowing in breath, over and over, and then the warm glow of life, the change of colour to the. skin, the wonderful of that singular moment.

I know how thoughts slip through all filters, tricking their way into the ordinary, tipsying it, tilting it and illuminting a light that shows something new. It’s exhausting. But I am in for the learning, despite the confusulation .