1. There is something irretrievably autumnal in the movement and the taste and the temperature of the air and as I jog along with the pushchair trying to keep up with Alec on his scooter I feel a great rush of melancholy that magnifies every single one of last summer's lost forever pleasures.
2. I love to watch my children playing -- in the bath tonight they were not still for a moment, busy busy busy. Alec was serving cups of bathwater coffee; Bettany was copying him, pouring water from one cup to another, over and over again. They did not add to the world and did not subtract from it (though I know they were adding something to their own selves).
3. Alec asks very politely if he can come downstairs and have a story on the sofa. When I attach conditions (one chapter, straight upstairs to sleep by yourself afterwards) he is continues to be agreeable and calm. What a grown-up man!
