1. Having fresh herbs to snip over supper, and a homegrown cucumber.
2. When I was very small, we had a series of books about Nurse Matilda. Mrs Covelli read us the first one at school, and I came home demanding the rest. They went down a storm with the whole family - helped along because Edward Ardizzone drew the pictures, and he is The Mother's favouritest illustrator in the whole entire world. Christianna Brand tells about the Brown children, who do things like fill the family's boots with syrup, feed paper to the poodle to try and make him stammer and steal grapes from hospital patients and tread them into wine in a hip bath. There is also a baby with starfish hands and falling-down nappies. One day, a mysterious nanny arrives to look after them. Nurse Matilda is ferociously ugly, with a tooth like a tombstone. When she bangs her big black stick, the children are forced to continue with whatever mischief they are making. Yesterday, I saw a poster for a film called Nanny McPhee, which is based on those books.
3. Rosey, The Mother and I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was quite, quite magical. I was glad it kept so close to Roald Dahl's text, too. I loved the way it played Willy Wonka as a Peter Pan character - childlike in nice ways, as well as in slighty sinister ways.
