Three Beautiful Things

1. Today is a new dress day. It's the same shape and cut as one of my old dresses that is about to fall to rags, and I am very grateful to have found it. 2. The flock of sparrows is greedily investigating the gaps between our pavers and making use of the bird bath. With their skittish confidence and swagger, they remind me of a group of badly behaved tourists, possibly a stag party, or some young sales people attending a conference in a faraway city. 3. The man ahead of me in the coffee shop queue cradles a long steel box, and I am consumed by curiosity so I don't mind a bit of a wait while he unpacks his sharpened knives, boxes up half a dozen blunt blades and receives his payment.

1. 'Are you sure it's non-uniform day?' Luckily, the PTA has issued a reassuring flyer, which I can send to his phone. 2. Bringing home a parcel of chips for tea.  3. Sorting through my winter clothes and finding that I do in actual fact own some beautiful tights; and also that there are gaps that mean I need to choose some more.

1. I take the extra fifteen minutes of sleep after the alarm. 2. I give up on forcing my feet into pairs of boots that look like my old boots, and ask for a completely different pair -- biker-style boots with solid soles and buckles on the ankles. I slip in like I've been wearing them for weeks. 3. The instructions suggest gluing seed beads into place -- but I can't be doing with the mess of glue, and there's a beading needle with a tiny eye right there in my sewing box. 

1. We realise that he had an umbrella all along. 2. An author comes back with her edits after 48 hours -- she's already moved on to the next book and doesn't want to leave that world for too long.  3. French revision: her pleasure in realising that the verb in the question is the verb she needs to use in the answer.

1. The nasturtiums have put on a brave show to finish the year. Even after the summer heat dried them bone white, they tried again. And now there are hexagonal leaves protecting the compost bin's modesty, and a few bright flowers. 2. Pulling down the tired sweetpea vines and tidying them away to let October light flood into the garden. 3. When I next come into the kitchen, there's a batch of cinnamon buns on the table, still warm and freshly iced.

1. Winter coat: still fits, is still warm. 2. In the shuffling calm before Pearl and Dean fanfare, the man in the row in front of us is quietly sketching the man in the row in front of him. 3. We are full of talk about the film -- a presentation of an art exhibition that we didn't get to. From Whistler's fascination with the Thames, to the sulky face on Miss Cecily Alexander (100% justified, I felt) to the absurd peacock room and the artist's feud with the banker who commissioned it.