Three Beautiful Things

1. ...and so I bring home a paperwhite, two feet bulb to bud, wrapped in an orange bag for life. 2. Thudding feet and red tops -- a teacher and four boys from my son's school pass me on the pavement. 3. We watch an episode of Abney and Teal  because Bettany can't remember this gentle, whimsical animated CBeebies classic. I'm surprised at how much I've forgotten, as this was a real favourite. I have to re-learn the world nearly from scratch. How did I lose track of Bop and the Poc-pocs?

1. Flipping through my library book to check the glossy picture section in the middle. 2. I bend right down and check the green spikes so I can assure her that the rats have not eaten the flower buds on her emerging bulbs. 3. I stand for a moment admiring the display of weird 1960s and 70s sci fi books -- giant purple cats and suffering astronauts and spaceships shaped like skulls.

1. I walk home across the common -- it's bruised and muddy, but still here, and birds are calling to each other. 2. Now I have time to sit and look carefully at the glass paperweight I found in a charity shop on Sunday. This one has three trumpet flowers made from elongated millefiori petals in red, yellow and white, emerging from a cloud of ink blue glass and silver bubbles. I turn it this way and that to admire the details  on the backs of the flowers, magnified by the thickness of the glass. 3. 'Well, supposing you meet a handsome French boy and you want to chat about daily routines past and present, including unexpected disruptions and your opinions on various chores?' I am flailing now, trying to tempt her onwards as we work through the sentence builder for her French test. She looks at me as if I've missed something key and says, 'He will learn English if he wants to talk to me.'

1. Fluttering on the edge of vision -- a few little brown sparrows touch down in the garden, and then take off again. 2. We suddenly remember the bread, and treat ourselves to a bakery loaf. 3. At last we've got round the Digging For Britain episode covering the Norfolk Carnyx hoard -- a mass of metal and soil lifted from a building site that turned out to contain an Iron Age Celtic battle trumpet, a standard and shield bosses. One interpretation is that the collection was a votive offering, buried to affirm an end to hostilities. I keep thinking about the high worth of those objects -- the effort needed to smelt the metal and smith the fine sheets that make up the trumpet, and the way it had been repaired and used over many years. Even those fierce people put a high value on peace.

1. For now, we're a household with a jar of home made chocolate chip cookies. 2. For the bathroom, a new bar of Marseilles soap with the name of the scent moulded on in sharp blocky capital letters. 3. Today, I've finished reading two books that were a bit of a slog (but both worthwhile in their own way). Perhaps the next ones in the pile will be easier.

1. The sighing glug of a hot water bottle filling, and the soft belch of air making room. 2. Spoken word night. The energy shifts from poet to poet -- from loud men just come from work, urgent stories backed up like floodwater; to folks working through a complex idea; to little voices with a tentative question 'is it just me?'  3. Sky is hazy. Stars show up anyway.