Three Beautiful Things

1. There's something rather hopeful about a city so full of bikes that parents and children cycle together at rush hour.  2. At the very back of this slow, near-empty train, someone is singing showtunes, taking requests and enjoying the unusual acoustics. 3. It's been a slow journey, but I pretty much walk on to a Tube train, and then on to a train heading towards home. I've had plenty of time to read, and plenty of time to think about everything I've seen and done today.

1. The sausage rolls come out of the freezer pale and cardboardy. But 25 minutes in the oven and they are crisp, golden and tasty. 2. A friend has lent Bettany exactly the kind of suitcase she wanted for her school residential trip. 3. Another editor recommended The Magnus Archives  podcast for its eerie horror short stories, and I listen to a couple as I wind down for the evening. It has the framing device of a frustrated and misanthropic archivist trying to make sense of a disorganised archive of uncanny experiences. The stories are satisfying and original, very much in the spirit of the not too horrible Victorian tales that I enjoy.

1. Still half asleep, I hear geese going over the roof. Autumn is here. 2. Bettany paints my nails, and then I paint hers.  3. I really was very ready for that cup of tea.

1. The fly with has been bothering me while I'm meditating for the last couple of days finds its way out of the back door. 2. It's just us girls this evening. Bettany lines her babies up on the sofa so we can all watch Red Dwarf together. But it's a scary one ('Quarantine'), so we follow up with a Mabel-centric episode of  Gravity Falls . 3. A rather bouncy Alec returns from Scouts, boings up the stairs to see me, and bobs about the room telling me how wet his socks are.

1. I'm looking in the wrong place. Both girls are up near the ceiling in Bettany's high sleeper.  2. Games night. My reporter character is standing in the right place to shoot a depraved Nazi sorcerer (they're the worst kind). 3. I fall asleep holding my phone on which I'm listening to Doreen Carwithen's East Anglian Holiday  and playing a word puzzle.

1. Downstairs there are seats away from the air con, the loud speakers and people talking. I vanish into Mrs Gaskell's chilling historical novella, Lois the Witch . 2. A buoyant child bursts out of the audition, confident and content, whatever the outcome. 3. Even in the garden I can smell the shortbread I have baking in the oven.

1. I've got some non-wordy tasks to do, so I can play music with lyrics -- namely Vashti Bunyan's sweet, otherworldly folk songs. They are like nursery rhymes from an alternate reality. 2. In the biscuit tin I find a jammie dodger. 3.The cardboard packaging that we've been storing for what feels like months is out in the garden awaiting the dustcart.