Monday, November 30, 2020
Plan, company and light reading.
Friday, November 27, 2020
Call, next book and shut off.
1. I have a call with a client that wanders a bit off topic -- but it feels so good to hear a real person's narrative.
2. The children have decided between them that we are going to read the next Morrigan Crow book now; 'and then we'll read the next dwarfs book.' Alec picked The Weirdstone of Brisingamen for our last read, and Bettany grumbled quite a lot, so I'm pleased she's keen to read the next one -- and I'm pleased that she and Alec agree on something, for once.
3. My phone has a new thing that makes it go monochrome at bedtime. The lack of colour cueing makes some apps unusable and the whole thing is so tedious to navigate that I am glad to switch off and put it to one side.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Patience, paint and comic novel.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Out of the dark, mind how you go and floating island.
Tuesday, November 24, 2020
Routine, timer and map.
Monday, November 23, 2020
Anniversary, willows and clotted cream.
1. It's our eleventh wedding anniversary this weekend. We take some time to flip through our wedding photos. As always I am struck by how many people wished us well as we set out on married life. The children stare at the faces of people now gone; and Bettany tells a version of me living a day four years before she was born that I should have left more room on the bench for Nick.
2. The bright red and yellow shoots of pollarded willows.
3. We spoon the rest of the clotted cream on to our apple crumble.
Friday, November 20, 2020
Delivery, visitor and orange slice.
1. A delivery arriving will always be exciting, even if it is just a bag of frozen fish or some drain cleaner.
2. Around the time I need to switch the lights on, one child or another comes upstairs to see me. This afternoon it's Alec. We look at the sunset, which is very blue and orange -- like a painting, he says -- and he tells me more about a book he's been reading at school. It's a collection of extracts from longer adventure stories. Yesterday he said he wanted to read some of them, but couldn't remember the titles. We worked one of them out from the details he could recall; and today he has the name of another: King Solomon's Mines.
3. While I work in the evening I chew on the orange slice from my drink.
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Little dog in a hurry, brighten and stars.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Planning, declutter and toast.
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Sympathy, new gadget and headlines.
Monday, November 16, 2020
Tiny stars, birch leaves and bottle of wine.
2. The way fallen yellow birch leaves create an illusion of sunshine on a grey day.
3. We come home from our walk and find that Nick has opened a bottle of wine -- apparently the other players on his remote war games session had wine and he wanted some too.
Friday, November 13, 2020
Going, light and my turn.
1. A flock of birds hurrying across the sky
2. The glow of a reading light under Bettany's covers.
3. While Nick is busy with his gaming friends and the children are asleep, I get a go with the TV and the Xbox.
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Avoid, open a blank document and geranium.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Wake, new edit and please buy books.
1. I don't remember falling asleep.
2. To start a brand new edit and feel that it's going to be a good one.
3. The children asking me to buy books for them -- Alec wants His Dark Materials; and Bettany wants more Morrigan Crow.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Shattered, research and pitta pizzas.
Monday, November 09, 2020
Omelette, in the front garden and seeds.
1. Nick announces that he's getting up to cook a Japanese rolled omelette for breakfast. When I come down a little later, he's looking very pleased with his new skill, and the children are refusing to eat it. We finish it off (it's delicious), and make some toast.
2. There's time to do a little tidying in the garden and have a quick gossip with the neighbours.
3. To find a lot of seeds in my pocket.
Friday, November 06, 2020
Fog, photo and herbal.
1. To open the shutters to a morning so foggy that the world has almost vanished.
2. A woman crouches to photograph a robin at the corner of the park.
Thursday, November 05, 2020
Sweetpeas, clandestine and letter M.
Wednesday, November 04, 2020
Sun, dyed and podcast.
Tuesday, November 03, 2020
Back, not quiet and probably not boxing but I'm not sure.
1. Unnatural though this might sound, I'm so pleased to be back at my desk.
2. We hoped that we could settle the children down with a calm, quiet bedtime. But this chapter of our book features a race between a giant cat and a rhinoceros.
3. Bettany confides that in PE her class has been doing boxing -- which is strange, because I understood they'd been learning basketball. But apparently she climbed up on to the ropes and jumped on her opponent then hit him with a chair. She's called 'Smasher' in the ring. One of her friends is known as 'Volcano'. It doesn't sound much like boxing, but I'm definitely not allowed to query it at the next parent-teacher consultation. (Alec's class did do a few of weeks of boxing in PE last year, but he missed all the sessions because he was ill one week, and then, as he says, 'out for the day on school business'. If he's going to get hit with chairs by a girl named Volcano who doesn't play by the Queensbury Rules then I think it's just as well.)
3a. I pop downstairs in the middle of my writing group Zoom session to say goodnight to the children. They are looking at a book of Charles Addams cartoons. Will I explain why this one is funny? And what about that one?
Monday, November 02, 2020
Cook, gardener and mud.
1. To buy a secondhand cookbook for Alec and to know that he'll spend a happy couple of hours planning days when he will cook all the meals.
2. I go into the garden to move compost around and am joined by Bettany. She sets up a mud cafe in the front garden and serves cakes on leafy dishes.
3. We've tracked mud into the house. Nick says, 'I'll get the vacuum cleaner out.'
Free plants, seasonal joys and apricots.
1. A plant in the front garden has thrown out rosettes of dark red leaves with aerial rootlets. I snip them off and bed them hopefully here ...
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