Three Beautiful Things

1. This week, Bach Before Seven on Radio 3 has a theme -- they are playing his fan compositions of other people's music. 2. When I bring the bin bag down the hill, I feel there's more leaving the house than a litter of physical rubbish. 3. I finally settle down with the SCP audio series Alec has been asking me to check out. It's exactly as horrid and as bleak as I expected. Our shared taste for cosmic horror is perhaps our attempt to rehearse for life in world where we must often make choices in which no options align with our values. But despite that, we variously continue studying for our GCSEs, propagating houseplants, stopping for elevenses and learning to recognise birdsong.

1. Weeding the marigolds leaves my hands sticky with resin strongly scented with summer. 2. Lunch is yesterday's noodles with prawns stirred through and snips of green and white spring onion. 3. We learn from Digging For Britain about the vast forest of giant club mosses and horse tails from which the Welsh coal seams are formed. I try to imagine what it would have been like in those swampy forests, without birdsong but noisy with insects.

1. He shimmers past me like a fish heading into the fast water. 2. There is a Medusa mask, very stern and powerful, drying in the kitchen.  3. Nick is leaning out of the bay window and I'm holding the roof light hatch above my head. We are hoping to catch the spark of ISS rising up in the west -- and as the ISS Pass Tool and the Stellarium star map promise, it appears between Procyon and Jupiter. A win for international cooperation, and for predictability.

1. Waiting for us as promised is an orange bag of homegrown rhubarb. 2. We do not go down Bogey Lane. It's not because we're scared. It's because it would shorten our walk unduly. 3. ...and suddenly the bowed green bud is a red poppy.

1. At the top of the bank, between pavement and empty air, a drift of orange poppies. 2. We got the expensive kind of passion fruit substituted into our supermarket order. They were as large as goose eggs -- but she only likes them once they've ripened and dried, collapsing into ridges and hollows. I halve one for her, and the scent crossing the table makes us think they're worth the extra money. 3. I am ridiculously pleased with my nasturtium seedlings -- nine pairs of leaves so far -- which will eventually spill over to cover the compost heap.

1. I do not think that I will ever in my life whip an egg white to soft peaks without marvelling. 2. 'Ohh, great question,' says the lady next to me. 3. I return home triumphant with a cheese boule under my arm.