Three Beautiful Things

1. As Alec and I are coming up the High Street, we see Nick coming towards us. 2. We tried telling Bettany that the papercraft she's set her heart on couldn't be done because the video instructions are in Korean and the printables, taken from screen-caps, are not designed for A4 paper. But she was having none of that. And so we're all sitting round the kitchen table cutting out tiny accessories for a paper kitten. 3.  Bad Moon Rising  shows up on our Halloween playlist. I look up and see a huge crescent coming over Mount Sion.

1. To put Bettany's carved pumpkin out at the front of the house and help her go through the dressing-up bag in search of a costume. 2. To half-supervise Alec spooning treacle and syrup into a pan -- he's making another parkin. 3. It's an unseasonably warm night and there are even a few stars peering through the haze when I put out the last of the recycling. We are surprised and delighted by this evening of soft air that makes you think you wouldn't mind sitting outside in the pub garden. But with October, you never quite know what you're going to get; and I think that we would be no less surprised and delighted by a hard frosty night with our breath shimmering in the air under brittle stars. 

1. A lot of the massage therapists appear to be moonlighting physios. Today's one is happy to spend time coaching me through some pre-massage stretches; and then poking down the sides of my spine to find exactly where the stiffness is coming from. 2. It is a relief when Nick comes home: he is much better at explaining averages to Bettany than I am. 3. At supper time, we unwrap the parkin, which has been waiting in the dark for four days. This year's one is a bit wholesome and boring; but we've already given half of it away and eaten quite a lot of it, so I might make another.

1. A nursery walks down the other side of the street, hanging on to a Walkodile. One of the children has a dolly tucked into her coat; another child is clutching a train ticket. A boy near the back suddenly sits down on the pavement.  2. Alec's pleasure in the 'perfect' ice cream cone that he has made. 3. It's autumn now, with all the joys that brings -- but the season in our book has swung round into spring, and it's reassuring to remember that the storms and the fallowing won't last forever.

1. The best approach is to supervise, but not too closely. While Bettany pours acrylic paint over pebbles, I chop swede and strip wintery greens from their woody stems. 2. The children are fighting over a blanket. I drop a heavy square of crocheted wool on Alec's legs, shove the red fleece over Bettany and sit between them on the sofa. 3. That moment when the last of the physio is done, and I can roll up the mat for the day.

1. I wake early and it's raining hard. I get on the XBox before anyone else and build an elaborate watery city in Townscaper. 2. Being beaten by your own child at a memory game. 3. After Bettany has had her afternoon bath we run down to the Pantiles in the washed autumn light to catch the tail-end of the market.

1. At coffee time, Alec and I play a bit of Minecraft Dungeons.  2. Then suddenly we remember that Bettany has a red jumper she can wear tomorrow to 'show racism the red card'.  3. I am too tired for the thing I planned tonight -- but then I remember that I still haven't watched half the 'new' season of Futurama  that I completely missed because it came out while Bettany was tiny.