Tea, words and supper.

1. The hot cup of tea waiting for me on the breakfast table.

2. My words aren't coming easily today, and I can't feel confident about anything I'm writing. But I try anyway. As long as I aim for clarity, stick to the sources and remember the reader, it will do. There will always be some days when good enough is good enough.

3. A bag of chips on the supper table.

Cold, sky and Leonids.

1. The weather has changed and the cold is like a smack in the face.

2. I stop on our hill to compare the sky with my astronomy app. End up marvelling and gossiping about celestial matters with my neighbour and a passer-by.

3. I glance up as I lift the bin and a shooting star falls down the southern sky.

Breakfast, drift and pour.

1. I start to say no because I've already eaten breakfast and I don't want the work of cooking French toast for everyone else -- but that's not what is being asked. 

2. Day off. I drift between a memoir and a historical novel and a needlework project, half listening to the children's priorities: space ship insurance, a Ralph Lauren hoodie on Vinted, that brand of cola, what one might wear for a funeral.

3. I pour us wine right up to the lozenges at the top of the cut glass pattern.

Novel, coming back and ready for December.

1. In the early hours, I'm awake, all alone -- but I've got a new novel on my library app: a fenland gothic Saxon mystery called Mere by Danielle Giles.

2. My book order is one short -- but that doesn't matter, because I can come in again next week to see what stories and volumes I fancy. 

3. Nick and I organise our work Christmas lunch. As a freelancer, I often feel a bit sorry for myself when I hear about other people going out for their work do. So this year, I did something about it; and now we're going out for a festive lunch in early December.

Volunteers, eleven and bright crayons.

1. Volunteers growing out of the yellow clay on the edge of the building site: a castor oil plant with spiked green seed pods; and a couple of tall maize stems.

2. Alone at eleven -- drinking coffee at my desk out of a much bigger mug than usual.

3. With really good bright crayons and no particular expectations, shading doodled shapes to get a fake three-dimensional look. 

Wet walk, morning tea and detectives.

1. My trousers are soaked after my walk in the rain. I put on a dry pair and feel the chill leaving my legs.

2. She has time for a cuppa and a sit-down.

3. We've run out of Sherlock Holmes episodes for the time being, and I've found a Poirot series to fill the evening gap. We prefer the gentle, fastidious Belgian: his fondness for people, and his interest in their doings makes Holmes seem rather mean and remote and fusty. And Agatha Christie just writes female characters better than Conan Doyle. Quite honestly, its seems as if he once heard about women, or maybe saw some from a distance; but has not met or talked to one.

In the night, fish and steel.

1. I'm up in the small hours making a hot water bottle. While I wait for the kettle to boil, I lift the blind and see a fat moon and a single bright star.

2. Frying a little piece of fish in butter so the skin crisps up.

3. The food is already on the table. I am quickly chopping tiny bouncy tomatoes before supper, and it is not going well. Deep breath. Draw the knife across the steel; and now the blade leads the work.