Posts

Newly trimmed, processing and read along.

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1. Her little smile as the hairdresser comes round with the mirror -- that alone is worth the cost of the haircut. 2. Warm evening -- streets and pub gardens are full of A-level students processing results day. 3. I join another gathering to read aloud The Earth Charter -- this time a mix of campaigners and poets in a pub, all with different ideas about how a public event might work. We read it, and then it's time to talk about taking it to a wider audience. They comment self-consciously that they are  mostly middle-aged white men, and the discussion is robust with a fair amount of interrupting and apologising for interrupting. I dive right in, because talking about the charter feels as good as reading it and internalising it. 
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Celestial, pinhole and falling stars.

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1. Of course the eclipse! All day there's the news, and my messaging app is pinging with pictures and plans and hopes. I even love the traffic jam on Ashdown Forest and the difficulty we have parking, and the crowds of people on deckchairs and picnic rugs, laid open to wonder amid the grazed gorse.  2. Affluent and affable in linen, they are leaning on a gate with pinhole in a Glyndebourne programme card saying they thought they'd be the only ones up here. We admire their tiny sun image and give them a lend of our eclipse glasses. 3. Each one of us has seen a meteor falling across the sky this night -- but the long tailed shooting star that we all see together is the most wonderful of all.
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Routine, sweetcorn and sash window.

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1. I feel very pleased this morning to be exercising lit by sunlight and cooled by a draught coming through the open window. 2. Stripping off dark green husks from the year's first fresh sweetcorn. 3. The satisfying sound of a sash window closing against the cooling night air.
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Geraniums, remembered and tracker.

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1. A few wine red geranium petals blow in through the open window. 2. He has been out and bought all the cake ingredients I forgot to add to the grocery delivery. 3. I look over my Toggl time tracker for the day and compare it with the work I've done. I feel rather astonished and also pleased with myself.
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Coffee, sheets and tennis.

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1. We give the coffee machine a try -- it grinds and moans and spits out black and cream -- and then we sit in the dappled sun and shade with our mugs feeling pleased with ourselves. 2. A lot of the floaty white curtains are made from vintage bed sheets still marked with embroidered initials of the women who once brought this linen to their marriage. 3. With chain link fence, I frame my family knocking tennis balls around the court and blaming each other.
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Adder, quiet place and cucumbers.

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1. An adder draws its diamonds through the dust and away into the scrub 2. It is so quiet that we can hear the wind flickering silver/green the leaves of a poplar across the valley.     3. The farm shop has curled cucumbers 'grown here'.
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More sky, before lunch and seeking pizza.

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1. We come round the corner on to the cliff tops, and there is an awful lot of sky, much more than we are used to. 2. It suddenly seems like a good idea to order a glass of wine before we walk back for lunch -- so we sit deep in sofas, out of the sun but with a long view of the sea.   3. We smell the pizza long before we can see the van -- and when we get there, Nick has ordered for us and is bringing our drinks to the table.
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