1. To finally take myself to see the physio -- I've needed this appointment since February. I make him go after all the knots in my shoulders and I promise faithfully to do my exercises.
2. When I come down from settling Alec, Nick and Bettany are snoozing on the sofa. I hear a tinkling, musical sound, very faint, the ghost of a folk tune. I press my ear to the front room window, then go outside. The clack of sticks, the white flash of a handkerchief, a shake of bells. At the top of the road outside the pup morris men are dancing in the twilight. I leave Nick to his supper and take Bettany up the street to have a look. It is very good music -- there are at least three accordion players and two ladies in pith helmets, one playing a fiddle and other... the other is playing a serpent. I jiggle Bettany, wrapped in a fold of my cardigan, and she watches seriously, but can't quite summon a smile, even for the bells.
3. The pleasure with which my poor feverish Bettany lapped down a spoonful of infant formula paracetamol. She was lolling on my lap restless, whimpering and limp, but the moment the bottle came out she rallied and sat up, waving her arms and squeaking happily. She has a cold, a very snotty one (she sneezed so badly while we watching the morris men that I nearly asked to borrow one of their handkerchiefs) and she just doesn't know what to do with herself.
