Three Beautiful Things

1. We wake to the sound of gentle, steady rain falling on the roof light and playing in the gutters. 2. For etiquette, we must ask forgiveness for our drenched and unprofessional appearance -- but secretly, I think we're both marvelling at the power of the weather. 3. I come home cold right through to my bones but quickly warm up in a second shower.

1. Flicking through the weekend's photographs -- can still smell the woodsmoke and the grass, and feel the sun on my face. 2. I got into the habit of ruffling my nasturtiums each time I pass to disrupt the flea bugs. This time, none of the iridescent beasties jump up. Now I look properly, the leaves are less lacey, and I'm still hoping for more flowers. 3. The air coming through the open window is definitely a draft and it has a gusty wetness to it that feels like rain later. I close the latch, and enjoy the stillness and the silence.

1. I wake in my sleeping bag just before dawn and crawl out into the cool dry air to admire the eastern sky, where the clouds are gilded on their undersides and all hung about with birdsong. 2. There is on our right an abandoned apple orchard, dark, unpruned and heavy with red-green eaters. We take one each for the continuing journey. 3. Every year, at the tired tail end of summer, I am so pleased to see cyclamen -- clean dolly mixture pink and white -- doing a kindly service  by brightening the dusty leaf litter under hedges. Cyclamen aren't natives, but they often pop up far from gardens, as if someone on a mission has tucked corms into banks and woodlands where they might be needed.

1. It takes me a moment to identify it -- but that's honey in my piece of rocky road, rather than golden syrup. 2. The rain has coaxed a fuzz of green out of the dry baked fields, and everywhere plants are giving it another shot. 3. He returns from the dentist with a packet of antibiotics and a promise that they will start working within 24 hours; and also an extraction appointment for next week.

1. To walk through town cradling a huge bouquet of flowers -- butter-yellow scented stocks and sunflowers and a galaxy of daisy flowers. 2. Following my cousin's recommendation, last week I pushed a few spring onion roots into a pot to see if they would regenerate. I notice now that they are pushing up green stalks, and digging into the soil with new white roots as if they mean to give it a go. 3. She says that the thing that made this evening worth coming out for was my thing.  PS: My thing is on the Word Up Instagram, but it's too early in the morning for me to listen back to my own voice.

1. When I wake in the night, I have something to look forward to: Kim Stanley Robinson's lyrical descriptions of another planet in Blue Mars . 2. There's a bit of an anxious buzz about in my emails -- a website I'm writing a bit of content for is launching. All good wishes to you,  Bridges Insight . 3. It is disconcerting to stitch a school nametape into a man's suit jacket, but that's how it is with teenagers.