Three Beautiful Things

1. I'm still unwell, and I'm just cancelling everything in the days ahead now. It's very sad to miss out, but I'm quite proud and satisfied by the number of things I was looking forward to. 2. Idly gazing out of the window, I see very definitely that the foliage has tilted over into autumn colours. 3. 'That is a bold decision,' I tell a pea green caterpillar that is lying, velvet soft, along a nasturtium stem. I'm now even more motivated to bring the pots indoors during the overnight frost we've been warned to expect at the weekend.

1. To stand in the doorway soaking up some sun and enjoying the light and colour on my closed eyes. 2. I give up on trying to work through this cold and lie quietly with a podcast called Penny Royal. It's a good facsimile of the haunted generation experience of watching an Open University lecture on one of three available TV channels while off school because of a childhood disease. My son sits with me and is concerned that I'm being exposed to conspiracy theories, but I'm too sleepy to really engage with the material, so we're probably fine. 3. When I wake up, there are apple-cinnamon pastries for tea.

1. My lemon shortbread round is powdery light and zesty, and much more to my liking than Nick's chocolate rye biscuit. 2. He reports that as he was walking away, two magpies who had been watching him eat his lunch flew down to see if he'd left anything. 3. Paring one long strip of peel off a lumpy cooking apple, raw and weighty in my hand.

1. There's the scent of ferns, and now I will always be looking for an excuse to weed this pot. 2. The wood pigeon doesn't even look my way when I clap to chase it off my coriander pot.  3. My dad returns a book that I'd forgotten I'd lent him. Now I see it, I wonder if the sequel has come out.

1. We're having a rough few days with long sleep and disrupted nights, but 'some of that pasta from yesterday' heated up in the microwave  with a tablespoon of water bumps us over this hour. 2. It was just a quick glance in a busy day, but the sky at sunset, framed cigarette card style by the bathroom window is readily available when I close my eyes. 3. The way spinach wilts into a brownish mess of lentils and vegetables and makes it look like food.

1. Nick standing in the garden lets the roofer know that his enormous radio is very close to my desk window and he moves it over to the other side. 2. He says he can go by himself -- but can I wave him off out of the door. 3. There he is, waiting on the corner with his roof down for the last time this year.