Three Beautiful Things

1. After lunch, we nibble round the cones of Cornettos. 2. With air currents lifting the blinds, scampering through the hall, jostling on the stairs, and playing with the papers on my desk, the heat is doable. 3. At the end of the day, I lie with my legs up the wall, Radio 4's very lightest offering playing on my phone, against feet swollen by the heat and a lot of editing work.

1. At school, there are always people keen to gee him up. He's done well to get up the hill today. 2. A wood pigeon settled comfortably in the shade of a lime tree, wings spread and feathers fluffed for improved ventilation. As we come down the path, it gets up and hurries away. I wish that it had stayed and that I could join it on the cool grass. 3. Nestling boxes and bundles among the paperchains in the party box, which will be going back into the loft very soon.

1. New potatoes -- a fair few of them -- cooked with some mint leaves, ready for salads this week. 2. There's a Polish cultural event on the Pantiles, with red and white flags and flower headbands and folk songs. It's very jolly -- but not really intended for us. I think it must be a relief for expats to find a bit of space and time that is just for them. 3. 'Shall we get the barbecue out this week?' Nick wonders as I am meal planning and setting up a supermarket order ahead of some high temperature days.

1. We've slipped a barcode into the packaging, and the courier has a label. This box will be passed from hand to van to hand to hand, and in due course, there will be a refund for this failed monitor. 2. The work that seemed impossible last week? I'm going to deliver it ahead of the deadline. 3. The pop of thread pulling through fabric tight in the hoop.

1. I can't see them, but I can hear the sparrows spatting and quarrelling on the garden wall. We now have a small family flock, with some juveniles who occasionally squat with tucked necks and wide beaks, begging for a feed. Perhaps the parents will try another brood as the summer turns, and the flock will grow. 2. I have occasion to remember our butterfly, Bob, who never flew because one of his wings didn't inflate properly. But in his fortnight, he got on with sunbathing and sitting among flowers and fruit in our kitchen and in the garden. 3. Open mic -- I'm struck by the poems that open the boxes of memory and bundles of experience that people carry with them, sorting and curating the contents so that they can be decoded and understood by others.

1. As always, our lunch is a whirl. Salad, sandwich, all the gossip, coffee, a couple of photos, a shared cake, a little birthday candle, a funny meme. It's over far too soon, but we must get back to our desks. 2. Stirring bright turquoise plant food into watering cans and sharing it around the garden. 3. I'm trying and trying to learn one of my poems so I can recite it from memory, looking right at the audience; and so that it's mine, no matter what. It's hard -- as hard as writing it; and frustrating because I've got the words how I want them on a page, but some phrases are tricky to speak, or difficult to remember. But each time I go through, it feels less ragged and more like itself.