Three Beautiful Things

1. It's been a week of rain, and we are now used to the routine of peeling off wet clothing and hanging them to dry. We've taken to warming up in our pyjamas. 2. I finish work a little early, and there is time for a chapter of Bleak House  before supper. It's another chapter in which innocent grifter Harold Skimpole's creates carnage, and I hold in my head how John Jarndyce's inherent goodness and tolerance starts to harm the family he has collected around himself. 3. We lie in bed listening to Shakira's Whenever, Wherever in English and then in Spanish and then in English again and agree that it is just the best.

1. With my coffee, I have a little bun flavoured with elderflowers. 2. The first of my marigolds has come out, like a reliable, robust helper. The pelting rain we're having this week won't hurt her flaming orange petals, and she is welcome as sunshine. 3. There is a spoonful of sharp garnet red stewed raspberries to spoon over our chocolate fondants.

1. The alarm that I set on Monday while I was planning my week reminds me to tune into a professional development call on Thursday. Thanks, Monday Clare. 2. It's a pleasant feeling to overshoot my page count target for the day because I'm immersed in the edit. 3. A song comes on the radio that has a bone-deep familiarity. I realise that it can only be one of the songs from our primary school hymn book.

1. I'm still marvelling at the freshening effects of the rain we're having. The weeds at the edge of the bean field are gleaming and glittering and steaming in half-eight sunlight, and the woods are dripping, cool and restoring as well water.  2. Peeling off clammy wet clothes and climbing into something warm and dry. 3. On my way to a poetry event, a friendly shout. We'll see each other in there.

1. Radishes don't often come with greens, and when they do, the leaves fade rapidly to yellow mush -- so today they feature in every meal. 2. I will never not love pouring hot water over a soup cube and watching the dried veggies and seaweed and tiny shrimps expand. 3. Evening message: do I want to walk tomorrow morning? Yes I do.

1. Thank-you cards crowd the shelf behind our meeting. 2. He comes back triumphantly with a pudding. The children, despite their great ages, are astonished that there could be a pudding on a Monday. 3. We've sat up very late, but I'm glad because it means we heard the promised rain falling steadily in the dark.