Height, parcel and ghost.

1. When I come downstairs Bettany makes me stand against the wall so she can measure my height for her maths worksheet. 

2. Our friends send us a surprise Ocado delivery of olives, chocolate eggs and Champagne as lockdown loosens.

3. Listening to the finale of The Battersea Poltergeist on BBC Radio 4. I'm still in #teamonthefence. I find the storytelling around hauntings fascinating, much more so than the levitating girls and teleporting objects; and this series covered it really skillfully and ethically.

Fog, coffee and learning.

1. It is a very misty morning, so that the buildings across the car park are barely there. I tell Alec about the time when he was a very tiny boy and called me to look out of the window on a foggy morning because he did not understand what had happened to the world.

2. The sound of Nick's tread on the stairs -- he is bringing me coffee while I work.

3. To sit in bed doing a few tasks on an e-learning archaelogy course with Nick. 

Down/up, tomatoes and compost.

1. The beans have put out hairy roots and leggy stems.

3. Bettany quietly eats most of the tomatoes I sliced to go with our lunch. She enquires about a flavoured salt I had forgotten to put on the table.

2. Under the dry leaves is compost ready to use, and the rotted stem is all that remains of our pumpkin.

Spontaneous cuddles, parcel of books and ship tracker.

1. When the children go back to school I will miss the spontaneous cuddles.

2. A parcel of books arrives -- this time I've ordered things I actually want to read, rather than books I should be reading. 

2b. The whole school is studying a picture-only book called Journey by Aaron Becker as part of World Book Day, and I ordered a copy. The children have only seen it on screen and Bettany in particular is very excited to have our own book.

3. To use a ship tracker to see Uncle Rob's progress towards home.

Plastic tut, alone and wave.

1. We passed a box of 'free to a good home' things on our walk. Bettany picked up a plastic toy that might be a tiki bar. She has been playing with it ever since, adding characters to it from our 'people' jar.

2. In the woods I steal away for a moment alone.

3. As we are crossing the road a friend drives past waving wildly.

Strawberry smell, easy errand and crocuses.

1. There is an unnatural strawberry smell in the High Street that puts a smile on my face because it reminds me of something that I coveted as a child (not sure what, just that I didn't have it and wanted it very much).

2. An errand I expected to be complicated turns out to be pretty simple.

3. There is a mist of purple at the bottom of The Grove where the crocuses have come.

Light, air and roots.

1. This morning without being asked Alec opens the shutters of our bedroom so I have enough light to type.

2. To open a window and feel new air hurrying into the room.

3. My beans have put down roots.

Break, shortbread and dust.

1. Even though I don't particularly want to, I take my five minute stretching breaks after each hour of work.

2. A piece of Bettany's shortbread arrives on my desk at tea time.

3. To slide fluff out of the dustpan and into the bin.

Shortbread, tired and world radio.

1. I come down to dinner and find that Bettany has made more shortbread. 

2. The children are very tired after a day of schooling -- to hear them call that they are turning out their lights half an hour earlier than usual.

3. To spend a cheerful twenty minutes playing around with Radio Garden, as recommended by my writing group. It allows you to navigate the world's radio stations on a zoomable map. We listen to Japanese morning radio, and wheezy men in the north Pacific discussing what women want in various decades, and catch the last sentence of a chilling tale from the Isle of Skye, and a cheery woman talking in Faroese, punctuated by the occasional 'hallelujah'.

Iris, shortbread and flowers in the woods.

1. Before breakfast the iris is a dark spike. After, it is three flashes of deep purple and lemon yellow.

2. To leave Bettany making shortbread while I do some cleaning tasks in the kitchen. 

3. On the far bank, across from a memorial bench, someone has planted snowdrops. In another place, there are crocuses at the side of a busy path.

Memory, viewing and rover.

1. Alec tells us at dinner that his happiest memory is waking up hungry in the middle of the night and coming downstairs with Daddy to eat rice pudding,  

2. We snuggle into the big bed to watch Carradine's Cockney Singalong live -- because it's half term and we don't have to worry about bedtimes.

3. News that the Mars rover has landed successfully filters into the merry-making.

Banana bread, chocolate and reading aloud.

1. Banana bread warmed in the oven.

2. In the middle of the afternoon when I am deep in work, Nick produces a piece of chocolate from some secret place.

3. Reading aloud to Alec from Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam are almost at the mountain. This section has a lot of topographical description which I find as much of a slog as the two hobbits did. But Alec continues after I must stop and later that evening he calls out to me that they've arrived at the mountain.

Pancakes, blackbird at twilight and crow.

1. Nana, Alec and Nick make pancakes for us all to mark Shrove Tuesday.

2, The glassy evening call of a blackbird.

3. We finally get to watch the Upstart Crow Christmas Special. From 2018. We'll watch the 2020 one later this week.

Knock, plan and waiting.

1. The postman has to knock this morning because he has a heavy book parcel.

2. To make a pancake plan -- we're taking ourselves and our pancake pan to Nana's in the afternoon. 

3. After 9pm, I finally get to listen to the new episode of the The Battersea Poltergeist that dropped this morning.

Chocolate at breakfast time, pockets and not Pink Floyd.

1. Eating chocolate at breakfast time because it's Valentine's Day.

2. My mother-in-law has put a pocket in my previously pocketless pyjamas.

2. In the end we have to Google it, because Alec is so, so sure that Pink Floyd is responsible for 'Baby Shark'.

Rosey cheeks, behind and crackle.

1. When we go inside the children's cheeks turn bright pink. 

2. Turning round to look back at the sunset through the trees.

3.Walking on frozen mud and feeling it crackle under my boots.

Small tasks, snow and dance.

1. Today is a rest day: I spend a little time reading for fun after breakfast, and focus on small tasks and easy targets for the rest of the day.

2. We wake to a sprinkling of snow that is quickly gone and then enjoy a day of pretty flurries with large, feathering flakes.

3. Bettany bars me from her dance class watching week -- but five minutes before the end she comes and finds me for the final dance and I get to see the little Bettany dance smile that is, really, what I pay for when the dance class invoice comes in (although I am not allowed to join in because I'm still in my pyjamas).

Ice rink, eggs and saved.

1. Watching people negotiating and navigating the car park behind our house. It is lan ice rink and I like all the different narratives -- two teenage boys with cans of drink deliberately walking up the most challenging part; 4WD vehicles going straight into a space; timid drivers thinking better of it; the dustcart coming by as if it's just an ordinary day; a dad with a tiny child on his shoulders; brisk ladies in bright puffer jackets with walking poles.

2. Nick has been experimenting with eggs by baking them in the oven. 

3. I have a long-awaited medical appointment in Tonbridge today, the first time I have had an urgent need to leave Tunbridge Wells since the start of the pandemic. It is snowing and there are no trains. My dad comes to give me a lift.

Snow, Harriet and one minute.

1. The park, frosted with an inch of snow, is empty and we are the first ones into the playground. We make footprints along the paths, and the children collect icicles to decorate their snowman.

2. We come to the end of our reading book, Harriet The Spy. It's quite a gruelling read, about a child navigating a huge life change as well as conflict and bullying at school, but we were swept along by the deft, light writing. And it let us talk in a non-urgent way about bullying and lies and truth and fiction and child neglect and snobbery and all sorts of things. It's one of those books that has jokes aimed at adults -- I read it as a child and I could tell there were things going over my head, and I'm so glad I've read it again, because it's very funny on that level, too. 

3. The exercise we do in writing is a revelation -- write a sentence in one minute to a particular prompt. A minute is ages in terms of a sentence, and it makes me think that, really, no little slip of time is too short for a writing session.

Early, snow and hot chocolate.

1. I've woken early and can't sleep so I go downstairs for breakfast. After a little while the children join me, scratching their hair into sleepy spikes, rubbing their eyes and complaining that the kitchen lights are too bright.

2. To glance up and see that snow is falling outside.

3. Alec asks for hot chocolate. To tell him that he can make it himself, if he likes -- so he does.

Green footpath sign, progress and bin.

1. After a short stretch of road walking, to find the little green footpath sign pointing into the hedge.

2. To look across the valley and see the way we have just come.

3. The children come scampering up the stairs to take my bin away for emptying. They argue in whispers about bringing it back and in the end one brings it and places it at the end of my desk; then the other takes it away and brings it back a second time. 

Ginger cake, sunset and stirfry.

1. Alec runs upstairs to show me that he has obtained Granny's ginger cake recipe.

2. A sunset that turns the sky a deep orange-red that I didn't expect to see in nature. As the year turns towards spring the sunset moves out of view from my window. This week I have to crane to see it.

3. The pleasure Nick takes in his purple cabbage stirfry.

Can do, birdsong and prints.

1. Before he leaves Nick tells me that I'll have to print Bettany's maths sheet for her. When the time comes, Bettany points out rather tiredly that I can't print a PDF directly from Teams. 'You have to click those three dots to download it and then print it.' Which makes me wonder if she actually needs help doing this at all.

2. In a quiet moment I can hear birdsong from my desk.

3. After a day of looking at words to focus on a book of Hiroshige's prints.

Time passes, parcels and dates.

1. To look up from work and find that an hour has passed. 

2. A few parcels arrive -- I did my invoicing last week and now I've been paid so I could buy a few bits that I need.

3. To flip through an almanac checking what is going on in February -- Mars can be seen close to the moon in the middle of the month; there's imbolc, candlemass as well as St Valentine's Day; and the Chinese Year of the Ox begins.

Catkins, sit down and dusting.

1. To pick a few small sprigs of hazel catkins for Nana. 

2. Alec finds his hoovering work so exhuasting that he has to have a little sit down between areas of floor.

3. To finally get the high thread of cobweb  ont the landing that has been bothering me for a week.

View, downhill and waiting.

1. We come to the spot in the forest which I think of as Instagram Corner because it features in so many shots of wholesome family activities. There is already a man sitting on the bench breathing deeply. We keep our distance and stand watching rain clouds coming in from Sussex.  

2. Alec says that when they came here on a school trip, everyone spread out and ran down this hill.

3. I'd told everybody that we were going on a proper walk with no stopping but somehow we end up standing around watching the children poking clots of dead leaves out of a stream. 

Fan theory, bath and phone conversation.

1. Bettany earnestly tells us about a Frozen fan theory she has discovered today. 

2. Alec lowers his lanky limbs into the bath until nothing is showing among the bubbles except his head.

3. A long refreshing phone call with a friend.

Crossover, more important and talk.

1. I hit send on an email to my goddaughter and see that while I was writing her mother had sent me a message.

2. 'No, Mummy, cuddling you is more important.'

3. Our neighbour calls me because she is upset about the trees behind our house being taken down. Talking it over helps us put our feelings  into words that we can -- perhaps -- use to help repair this situation.

Morning walk, piper and Burns Night.

1. On a crisp morning to leave the house alone and just walk.

1b. Alec comes up to tell me about a time-management disaster -- PE, assembly, a picture of a Mayan temple and all this English, and I've only got ten minutes. (I find out later that he's been sending gifs to his friend on messenger instead of getting on with his school work.) To tell him to take the easiest task first and let the rest follow. I'm hoping that perhaps these low-stakes experiences will help him avoid rougher times in future. 

2. There is an Australian playing the Star War March on bagpipes in Bettany's Beavers meeting -- because of course there is.

3. To settle on the sofa with Nick and watch BBC Scotland's Burns Night concert. Eddi Reader's wild Charlie is My Darling has always been a bit of a favourite on my playlist, but I can't bear to listen to her achingly sad John Anderson except on this one night. 

Snow day, lap and origami.

1. It snows a tiny bit -- hard white pellets that are nearly hail and just enough to turn the ground white, but not for very long. The children run outside to the carpark and play in it before it vanishes.

2. Alec is almost too grown to sit on my lap, but he still finds a way to arrange himself.

3. I open an origami book on a project that calls for paper we don't have. But somehow, because Bettany wants to do it, we end up experimenting, and tweaking until we've made it.