Ginkgo, battenberg and last of the daylight.

1. To pick up a few ginkgo leaves -- bright yellow, ridged like fingertips.

2. Small battenberg cakes for tea: pink and yellow and very, very sweet.

3. Through the blind slats, the duck egg blue fades out of the sky.

Mushrooms, meat and veggies.

1. I open the fridge for a little gloat over the three types of mushroom -- nameko, maitake and shiitake. I'm ordering in a few each week to learn them, and discover which ones I like best. I like them fried for breakfast, and the words of the mushroom farmer on the Pantiles echo: 'Fry them like really crispy bacon. Mushrooms aren't like anything else. They release more nutrition the more you cook 'em.'

2. Picking the meat off the chicken carcass before it goes into the stockpot.

3. Nick has diced and ribboned an array of vegetables for my noodle soup.

Orange, cyclamen and roast dinner.

1. Fox by Sainsbury's local -- not sure which is more orange and jaunty. But it's just past 4am and the fox is definitely more awake.

2. It's the work of a few minutes to plant out that cyclamen -- swapped earlier this week for a few apples. 

3. The parsnips come out of the oven in pools of caramelised honey.

Autumn morning, you can pay and familiar.

1. Low sun pushes through the mist to illuminate the drops on every branch and stem. 

2. I ask Nick to pay for the cakes we've just bought the children because I can't -- my new phone is not set up quite right yet. This draws the attention of a baker passing behind the counter and there is a bit of joshing.

3. I catch this bus once a month -- to notice familiar faces.

Called, mushrooms and venison.

1. Waiting for prescriptions in the pharmacy, I lose myself in a short story and have to be called -- several times.

2. Lifting the lid on this week's box of mushrooms -- autumn chanterelles and bright orange girolles.

3. Nick has made a venison stew for supper, and it is delicious. 

Beginning late, fog and pigeon on a pot.

1. The radio conjures up Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium. We lie in the dark and let our day begin late.

2. Our world has become small, swaddled in fog.

3. Pigeon crouched on a warm chimney pot.

Sounds of water, rosemary and new phone.

1. All around, water is sounding as it runs, drips, seeps, trickles and falls.

2. Nick calls up the stairs to draw our attention to the smell of rosemary from the focaccia he is warming in the oven. 

3. The latest iteration of the new phone I've had my eye on is on offer -- for less than I was expecting to pay for last year's model. The men in my life weigh in with their opinions for twenty minutes; and then it's on order.