1. Alec falls off the step and tumbles underwater during his lesson. I see his puzzled face beneath the surface, he comes up, and goes down again. I pull him out and hold him close.
His teacher (who he adores) instantly reframes it: "Did you go underwater? Was it wonderful? Did you see the fishes?"
I hold him close, and he scratches at my chest as he often does when he feels he's been injured and someone is to blame. She says: "Look at him, completely unperturbed."
I set him back on the step and he goes back to chewing his sinker. Then: "Mummy underwater. Mummy go underwater." So I duck under a few times, and when I shake the water out of my eyes, he is laughing at me.
2. The dimples on the surface of the swollen river; and the grinning ducks sliding downstream on the racing current.
3. Alec says his crispbread is a bus. Then he bites the corner off and it becomes a cow (I can sort of see it, with its head down grazing).
Shelter, arisen and pub.
1. We are sheltered under the garden centre's great barn roof. There is a rush of sound and air as the rain comes down. 2. A mushroom, c...
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1. Stirring the brewing coffee to break the floating crust and bring up the crema. 2. We have donuts to give the children at teatime. 3. Th...
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1. An enormous fat bumble bee at work. She is so bulky that she can knock dead blossoms out of the way as she gets right in to the new jasmi...
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1. The shortest night and the longest day. I was up at Wellington Rocks with Anna, Paul and Jason. We couldn't see the sun through the m...