Watering cans, eating alone and settling down.

1. The grounding weight of my watering cans.

2. Our schedules mean that I eat supper alone in the peaceable, silent kitchen.

3. Now the children have gone to bed and it's darker and a little cooler, I can focus on writing one of the four articles I should have completed today.

Going away, sweet peas and calls.

1. Waving off the last of our sleepover guests. Now we are free to be tired and grumpy.

2. A bunch of sweet peas -- bright stained glass colours -- tucked in among our packing.

3. The wheezy calls of the baby seagulls nesting in a chimney stack the next street over; and the swifts shrieking overhead.

Shower, after supper and leave it.

1. Overnight shower has dampened the parched garden, left drops on the washing line and cooled the air.

2. Now we're sitting in the garden (we've left the supper table uncleared in the kitchen) I'm glad that I gave into an impulse and rolled a couple of tinned cocktails into my M&S basket.

3. I note in on my list and leave it alone for tomorrow.

Pied, open door and day's work.

1. My walk in the woods today is pied and dappled and splashed with light and shadow.

2. On a day when it's too hot and bright in full sun, to sit by an open door in vast, cool room.

3. When I am called for supper, my tracker shows me just how much work I have done today, and it feels like enough.

Jade green, pay and moving.

1. I love the coffee in jade green cups and saucers.

2. A schoolgirl doesn't have the busfare. The driver tells her that her pass will give her a free ride on the next bus. But a passenger pays her on. 'You're out late enough as it is.'

3. We are all aching for different reasons. Movement breaks have become a games night sacrament.

Not full, new coffee and nearly gone.

1. Opening the dishwasher and discovering that it is not full and clean as expected, so I don't need to empty it. 

2. The new coffee has some enticingly complicated instructions with it.

3. Someone has been eating the jammy cakes I made, and there is only one left.

Cash, work and sofa.

1. Our bank has given every customer £100, which is a pleasant thing to find in our accounts.

2. This edit of a sweet romantic novel is flying along -- and it's a Christmas book so the descriptions of cold weather are very welcome on a day when I've shuttered the west side of the house against the determined sun.

3. Three of us squashed on the sofa in the front room -- coolest spot in the house -- listening to the radio.