1. To applause and a bit of music, Year 6 come out of school for the last time.
2. Bringing a cup of tea and a biscuit up to my desk.
3. The way my troubles melt away as games night begins. My character's troubles -- not so much. We've drawn the attention of an eldritch horror; and to get the Romani to advise us on dealing with said eldritch horror, we had to give them our client's farm. I had to roleplay right up to eleven to get us through that awkward phone call.
1. Where the grass has worn away, purple self-heal flowers have filled the space.
2. We spend a while watching swans and their six grey cygnets upending themselves in the lake.
3. Through the fine rain, the silver/green flicker of willow leaves.
1. Remembering that a supermarket order is coming, with all the ice lollies.
2. On a hot day, a long drink of orange and ginger squash from one of Nana's summer-coloured tumblers.
3. Sitting quietly towards the back of the hall (near the open doors) and thinking that my child (playing one of Darwin's chums) has the most plausible Victorian costume.
1. The curries we have excavated from the freezer for our supper are particularly good -- a railway lamb, a supermarket chicken tikka and an unidentified one made with roasted aubergine and sweet potato. Nick thinks he made it; but did he follow a recipe, and do we still have it?
2. The jasmine by the back door is in full flower, a little beaten by the rain, but still doing its best to make the world smell and look better.
3. Pinching out tomato shoots -- there's always one that I don't spot, though. One year, I let them grow in a sprawling mess. It didn't end well, with broken stems and impenetrable foliage. So I'm always careful to do my tomato admin every few days.
1. Probably the highlight for me (sorry, Bettany, yours was great, too) was our neighbour's youngest belting out Final Countdown. She has a tiny little girl voice that somehow fills the entire hall. But I enjoyed the school's happy, welcoming reaction to the song Bettany's band performed -- George Ezra's Green Green Grass.
2. Fortunately, there is a packet of French salted butter biscuits in the back of the cupboard.
3. The exercises the physio left me with have become rather easy. Luckily, she also left me with some ideas for making them more interesting.
1. The recent heavy rain has scoured the sandy dust from the path. The crunch of gravel underfoot.
2. There is a bit of a scrap over the last piece of tenderstem broccoli, which is almost as welcome as asparagus, though cheaper and easier to obtain.
3. The BBC Sounds app turns up a documentary about Oasis, which is exactly what I want to hear about this evening.
1. On the sandstone pavement where we are waiting, liverwort (marchantiophyta) has put up tiny palmtrees. I discover now that these are archegonial heads, holding the female reproductive organs.
2. Bettany's dance teacher has a rose for every single performer. This is the end of our time with the wonderful Do4Kids dance school, and it hits me in the finale -- 'Hey Baby', which Bettany has been dancing since she was in Early Years. The traditional Loony Toons theme that closes every class nearly (but not quite) floors me. I would like it very much if we could stay safe in primary school forever and ever (but Bettany would 100% strangle me for wishing that).
3. The cheering from the pubs and houses with open windows is so loud that I can feel it.
1. As we walk, the grinding, crunching sound of Bettany working on a chalky double lolly.
2. Midsummer afternoon on the common -- rabbits grazing. We pretend not to notice them, and they pretend not to notice us.
3. hacking through the front garden with my clippers and twine, I find fairies lying face to the stars and face to the soil like over-refreshed festival goers.
1. It rained in the night (it's been raining for weeks) and the grassy paths on the common have an enticing scent -- flowers, wet dust, broken vegetation.
2. After supper, it isn't raining and I don't have any work, so I jump in with my gloves and secateurs, canes and string. I come face to face with an gorgeously blue agapanthus which looks rather offended to find itself in a pot beside the compost heap. I hack it free and bring it round to a spot where it can be seen.
3. To sit with Nick and a beer watching the sky grow dark.
1. Even at the top of the house, I can smell the milk warming for Alec's porridge.
2. The bristly blue stars of borage flowers.
3. Nick and Bettany bring home a large bag of flying saucer sweets -- bland and papery with a dab of sherbet in the middle.
1. Running a spoonful of deep red raspberry coulis through my breakfast yoghurt.
2. I slip a box of popcorn into a schoolbag as a treat for later.
3. The peachy scent of this flavoured tea really lingers.
1. The ritual of freewriting at the start of a workshop. For me, it's like pushing open the door to a wonderful garden -- never quite know what I'm going to find.
2. From the crossing I can see two people waiting at the bus stop, which means there will be one along in a minute.
3. Aunt Sarah's boxes from Lush just keep on giving -- bubble bars, bath bombs, badges, a string of bright bears.
As part of the 3BT celebrations, Sarah Salway presented me with a poem, which is the most wonderful gift. Here it is, received with many, many thanks:
1. We get up earlier than usual, and I am pleased to have the extra hours -- like finding a fiver in the pocket of an out-of-season coat.
2. Making my X on a ballot paper and hoping hard that it will help to improve matters.
3. I open Canva and find an old project that I'd abandoned because it seemed like too much work for a result that wasn't quite what I wanted. It doesn't take much to finish it, and when it's done, I honestly can't remember why I wasn't happy with it.
1. Anna and Sarah steal me away for what turns out to be a celebration of this blog at Scotney Castle. It's a chance to talk and reflect and think about what I've achieved here. I didn't know I needed that space, but I am so grateful that they organised it and thought about it and made it happen. I feel like I have let out a long breath in a safe, caring place, tucked away in the lush midsummer Weald countryside.
2. The rattle of seeds in a paper packet.
3. Waiting in the drizzle for the coach that is bringing Alec home. Spotting his case coming out of the luggage store, and through the windscreen catching sight of his lanky figure between the seats.
4. Sarah and I head up to Flit and Folio's Summer Splash for an evening of silly songs and poetry. I think my favourite moment was during the song about Dunorlan Park when I spotted a man leaning round his table to whisper to his girlfriend an explanation of the term of 'dogging'. But close second is my favourite of Folio's works, 'I Wish I had a Voice Like John Cooper Clarke'.
1. Full of hope, I buy a few boxes and baskets to help organise the house.
2. With our supper, a bag of chips.
3. At the very end of the day I have the last few chapters of a romance novel to enjoy.
1. There is a moment when, even walking along the top of Mount Ephraim, I cannot hear the traffic.
2. The hiss of heavy rain outside the tent we are in.
3. We are deep inside a car park, and though it's only mid afternoon, I've been up for so long that I keep thinking it's dark outside.
1. I have an odd half hour today to catch up with my professional development. I've been so short of time recently that even reading a newsletter feels like a luxury.
2. Bettany and I knot ribbons for her birthday decorations. We work from opposite ends of a string to create the curtain effect she has in mind.
3. The air temperature has dropped quite suddenly from uncomfortably warm to refreshing.
1. At breakfast, while we are working out all the adjustments we need to make for the heat, I remember that what we really like on this sort of day is cold-brewed coffee mid-morning. It's exactly the right time to make it, so that is what I do.
2. To wait in a dimly lit place with air conditioning.
3. It's late and we're very sleepy, but we still enjoy the optimism of The Spooky Men's Chorale singing 'We'll Give it a Go'.
1. I remember that there's a kulfi lolly in the freezer on this hot afternoon.
2. At my desk, I can half-hear Alec and/or his friend playing the keyboard.
3. After the game, there's a moment to stand out in the warm night under the sky.
1. I show Alec a bird's nest I have found. He shows me where a gull is nesting on a chimney pot.
2. On a warm evening, the scent of lime blossom in the park.
3. The tink tink tink-tink-tink-tink sound of the beads on her bike spokes.
1. 'I love shopping,' Bettany announces as she tows the basket around The Range.
2. As it was my birthday, there is a free cake waiting for me at the bakery.
3. Sharp lime rubbed round the rim of my beer glass; and the bright green coriander and onion scattered over our plates of chilli.
1. Among my birthday presents is a new book of Tove Jansson's art, featuring lots of bits I've never seen before.
2. Stopping for a gossip in Chapel Place.
3. Alec slices watermelon.
1. I am still not over the novelty of streaming music -- you think of a song, or half remember a song, or hear about a song, and then you listen to it, straight away without waiting. And then you can listen to various covers; and other tracks by the same artist, or similar songs by artists that you've never even heard of because they are Chinese or Argentinian.
2. At the end of the afternoon, to step through the back door and find that it's warm out.
3. Grating a cucumber to go with the railway lamb that Nick has cooked for our supper.
1. Nick has brought me some PG Wodehouse books from the library. There are plenty to choose from, and with their familiar characters and comforting well-worn settings, they are instantly forgettable so can be re-read and re-read. His body of work is rather a lovely gift to the world.
2. There's a lozenge-shaped moon, rather severe, watching us play.
3. She had to sprint, while I took my time getting a ticket and walking down to the Tunbridge Wells platform -- but over the tracks the London train is pulling away while I'm coming down the stairs, so I think she must have caught it.
1. On a shaded path through the woods, the glowing faces of tiny pink geraniums.
2. I spend an hour talking with the residents of a care home as part of their entertainments programme. I tell them about Three Beautiful Things, and then join the staff in helping them write cards to friends and relatives. I think my favourite was the man who asked me to write that he could not have hoped for a better son-in-law. I also liked writing out the Lord's Prayer for an elderly clergyman; and hearing an elderly lady's memories of watching Shirley Temple films with her sister and her mum, who would, afterwards, run up copies of the star's dresses, one in pink and one in blue.
3. Alec and I treat ourselves to a snack from the corner shop and a walk home across the common.
1. Nick's pinacolada arrives in fancy a glass pineapple. Mine is rather dull by comparison -- but it packs a good punch, has a foamy top and there's a yellow flower floating in it.
2. Last birthday, Bettany received a kilo of chocolate and we are still enjoying that gift nearly a year later. The worktop is taken over by rows of chocolate-dipped strawberries and popcorn.
3. The unseemly scuffling at late suppertime around the foil tray of leftovers from the Turkish mixed grill we failed to finish for lunch. Even after negotiations, there's meat for tomorrow as well.
1. I've had a wary eye on the valerian plant that has seeded itself right by the hinge of the back door. I've never had valerian in the garden before, and I am pleased to see it -- but it's chosen a spot where it is vulnerable to crushing. Right now, though, I've got a moment to ease its roots out of the crack, and I've got a spot where I can plant it.
2. A quick taste of what the children are having for their supper is enough.
3. Working and half listening to the rain.
1. As I am leaving the post office, through the glass door I see Nick coming towards me.
2. It's worth it to buy the more pricy ready-to-eat produce. We're getting more perfect peach moments, and fewer pans of stewed fruit.
3. Opening the window before bed -- crescent moon in the sky that fades from duck egg blue to pearly yellow.
1. The physio positions her chair so I don't have to move my head to chat with her while we wait for her acupuncture needles and my muscles to do their work.
2. So enthused am I by the prospect of meeting Peppy for a cuppa that I write a news story in the ten minutes between her call and the time I have to leave the house.
3. Talking through science revision and seeing that the laws of nature have not changed since I did year eight science.
1. I think I might have some material already written for the job I have just agreed to do. Five minutes in my archive, and I have a draft to start from.
2. Doing a structural edit means I can work on my Kindle from bed or a coffee shop if I like.
3. We're all drawn to the kitchen by the smell of frying bacon.
1. Looking into the world of an artist, where dogs and chickens run wild through cluttered collaged backgrounds.
2. Nick is very pleased with himself because the supermarket app has promised him a free bunch of bananas to go with the free box of strawberries he has just brought home.
3. It stays light so late that we can go out walking after supper.
1. Now that Bettany has a rack on the back of her bike, I don't have to carry her jumper and water bottle.
2. The me who is now mixing fairy cakes is grateful to the me who earlier this afternoon took the butter out of the fridge.
3. I learnt French mostly by a total immersion method, with lots of roleplay and vocab lists and describe what's going on in this picture. Alec brings his revision flashcards down so I can test him. As I review the declined verbs (regular and irregular) and the rules he is learning, a few half-remembered phrases suddenly make a lot more sense.
1. We take our coffee into the theatre garden where we can look up into the trees.
2. Among the shopping are new season strawberries -- two boxes because it was an offer. The berries have a glossy shine and a deep scarlet colour that seem very promising. Even if they don't taste as good as they look, I can hope.
3. Cracking a chocolate-dipped strawberry with my teeth. And it's a good strawberry, too.
1. A very small person with pale blue eyes and fine blonde hair crawls along the bench seating to tell me all about her morning with lots of pointing and 'Up, up.'
2. The landlord has been round to fix our loo flush, which has had an intermittent fault for a few weeks now. It feels great to pull on the chain with the certain expectation of hearing water rush down from the cistern.
3. Almost ready for sleep, I try to explain to Nick that I'm going to return briefly to Blandings to read a chapter of Summer Lightning before I sleep; but I get P.G. Wodehouse mixed up with H.P. Lovecraft. And we think that this would be something we would both read.
1. We circle a reconstruction of Shillibeer's 1829 horse-bus, painted with flower wreaths like a Roma cart. We climb aboard and sit on red velvet sprung seats.
2. To learn that in London of 1897, you could hail an electric cab -- Bersey's humming birds, they were called.
3. We let our tired feet bring us into a bakery for a cup of tea and some juice.
1. I hardboiled a few eggs this morning. At lunch, I note that the one Nick is eating has a perfect yolk -- just a little soft.
2. It just takes a few snips to bring the garden back into line.
3. Foxgloves are best viewed in the dusk, a little distance away.
1. It's been so blimmin' wet that there are mushrooms on the common.
2. The nettles that have seeded have a misty grey blue colour to them.
3. Late at night, I'm told that the large rice pudding that no-one except me and Nick wanted at supper has brought a great deal of pleasure. And can I make another one?
1. The groceries arrive as Nick is getting supper -- which means we can have unexpected salad with our wraps.
2. I find the mint sprigs intended for my drink on the compost heap with the weeds I noticed while I was picking.
3. I hit my target for the day -- but a small push will make tomorrow easier, so I keep going.
1. It's quiet enough that I can hear the sand falling in my hour glass.
2. I have to glance around the full leaves of the tree in our garden to see the children down the hill to school.
3. This week, there's a lime to go in my soda water.
1. The reflection of a flying bird on a wet slate roof.
2. The weight of rain turns the silvery sides of leaves uppermost.
3. Once, a while ago, someone planted wallflowers along the hedge bottom on this road.
1. The bramble flowers strike me as unusually large this year -- almost like dog roses that have been through the wash too many times and come out faded and crumpled.
2. Coaxing a bee out of the window with a piece of card. Bees never seem frantic or annoyed -- they just keep trying, systematically, to find the way out.
3. As I test my son on his French, I think that his neat, cramped handwriting is very much his own -- nothing like mine; nothing like Nick's.
This weekend marked 20 years since the first Three Beautiful Things post. I don't have much to say, except that I'm broadly pleased with 3BT as a body of work and a creative practice. I really appreciate the company along the way because I've met some lovely folks through this work. The kind words and helping hands have meant a lot. And it's been reassuring to see that people enjoy reading it.
1. The smell of last night's leftover chips warming up for lunch.
2. Unmoulding a caramel custard -- a proper French one which says it's bio and a flan.
3. My child's obvious pleasure in the new pair of navy blue pyjamas we picked out together. She says they are 'preppy' and just right for a sleepover.
1. Tea made with lemon balm from the garden.
2. Nibbling on a couple of pieces of fancy chocolate after lunch. This one is coffee and biscuits flavour, which seems efficient.
3. The sounds of Alec delaying bedtime by hunting around for a new reading book. We notice it because we're in bed early ourselves.
1. There are a number of people standing under the turkey oak staring up into the canopy. They are pretending they are taking a phone call or waiting for their dog to poo or trying to decide whether to run home and get their bags-for-life -- but really they are taking a moment to feel awe at the scale of the branches and the sheer quantity of new leaves.
2. I go earlyish to the bakers to be sure of getting a good choice of cakes. I don't bother trying to decide: I get one of each, and two of the pink ones.
3. The rose feed that I add to the vase swirls in the water, then dissipates.
1. We wake to the sound of steady rain after a few hot, dry days.
2. I tumble down a bit of a rabbit hole after a social media discussion of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major -- you'd know it if you've ever been to a wedding. I toss a couple of sketches from John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme into the thread, and then queue up some of his other works on Spotify.
3. I quite enjoy the heat therapy part of my physio -- it's such a simple, pleasant intervention. The choreographer Twyla Tharp in her book The Creative Habit describes heat as her sacrament, and that's one way of considering physio tasks.
1. Bettany sets off up the hill to school. I hear someone in the crowd jostling around the door make a joyful shout of her name.
2. Our coffee apparently has a flavour note of apricots. I'm not convinced. But when I take a draft, there it is -- definitely yellow fruits, although I couldn't say if it is specifically apricots.
2. As I am hurrying down to the High Street, I see Nick coming up from the station with his suitcase.
1. We live in the sort of street in the sort of town where we can stroll across the park to a literary festival.
2. Bettany has been at work with a trowel and watering can, and now the front garden is full of fairy houses.
3. To watch ants hurrying their eggs and young back into the deeper galleries of the nest I have just disturbed in the compost heap.
1. There are just two Jaffacakes left, so I have them.
2. The crackling, popping sound of weeds lifting out of gravel.
3. While the kettle boils, to watch bees tumbling in and out of the wisteria.
1. After the bridge, the hard path cuts across the middle of a grass field spangled with buttercups.
2. The hard path continues left; or there's a line of bare earth scored through the grass over the curve of the slope down to a stile in the valley.
3. My old theraband has perished. The edges have ruffled, and it crackles interestingly when I stretch it a few times. Then a quarter of it rips off in my hands.
1. We can't feel the tiny raindrops, but we can see the rings on the still pond.
2. A snail in a pinkish shell watches us come up the path.
3. Today we've got time to knead flour and water into pizza dough.
1. The way polling stations appear overnight, apparently constructed from office supplies, and then vanish again at the end of the day.
2. The last piece of the brownie Bettany made at the weekend is now very gooey and soft -- exactly right.
3. Dozing and listening -- now we're on to the chapter about rotator cuff pathologies.
1. On the breakfast table is the essay Alec was fretting about last night -- printed and ready to hand in.
2. From a garden the scent of azalea.
3. Half-heard through the open window while I'm deep at work, the call of a swift.
1. Today's episode of Zombies Run! opens with a reference to an Australian improv show, which I only know about because of my habit of fossicking about on the internet looking for rabbit holes to tumble down.
2. Corn beef hash is what is for supper, and it's pretty tasty.
3. We get a fairly pricy box of chocolates delivered every once in a while from the chocolatier Coastal Cocoa. All of the chocs are delicious and we enjoy them very much -- but every once in a while, one turns up that is absolutely worth the subscription price. Last night we had a dark chocolate ginger caramel mini egg that made us both gasp with pleasure.
1. Once the corvids have mobbed the buzzard out of sight, I sweep my gaze down and happen to catch a deer leaping into cover.
2. The caramelised smell of a baking sweet potato.
3. I'm back to using my insulated to summer cup to keep my evening soda water with a dash of bitters icy. I'm looking forward to using it for my Aperol Spritz at Friday evening cricket, once the pitch dries out enough for it to go ahead and for us to sit on the grass.
1. Everyone is still asleep. It's too quiet to do any housework and it's too rainy to leave the house. So I finish a languishing knitting project while listening to an audiobook about osteoarchaeology.
2. A taste of Bettany and Nick's latest batch of brownies, still warm from the oven.
3. Alec and I dig in with Stranger Things -- I've been looking forward to it, but wanted to wait until he was keen to watch alongside me.
1. This morning, I'm piling into a car with friends to escape into the Weald, where we will visit a garden planted with 45,000 tulips.
2. Slender white 'Triumphator' tulips still carrying drops from the shower we have just missed.
3. Nick and I split a samosa from the corner shop across the park -- they really are very good, but have to be an occasional treat because fried pastry is not a key food group in middle age. The children have one each because they're growing almost faster than we can feed them.
1. A meeting that is over by 9.30am.
2. A big full moon is stuck on next door's chimney pots.
3. By my bed is a large and comforting book of Irish fairy tales that I can use to read myself into sleep. The last two stories involved heroes whose values or physical needs clashed with their quest so they failed -- but one got more chances; and the other was forgiven entirely.
1. Smacking a hardboiled egg to break the shell.
2. Pale green leaves on the huge oak tree at the corner of The Grove.
3. There is nothing quite like hearing about the history of diseases to make you feel grateful for living in the twenty-first century. I'm listening to Crypt by Dr Alice Roberts, and I've reached the chapter on leprosy.
1. Smearing a bit of filler into the holes in Alec's bedroom wall where we've taken out screws and fixings. We're summoning the energy to redecorate, so I thought I might as well do the filling.
2. I only realise when I have a cup of tea in my hands how thirsty I am.
3. The wind has been in the north for a few days, and that side of the house is noticeably cooler. I'm glad I can escape into the warmer rooms on the south west side.
1. I murmur an acknowledging greeting to a passing bin man.
He is a well brought-up African and replies with eye contact and a warm 'Good morning. How are you?'
I then have to respond with information about my wellness, and a polite inquiry about his. For me as a well brought-up woman from south east England, this is terribly awkward; but I value the disruption and I appreciate the warmth.
2. A new tube of toothpaste and a birthday card -- these are not difficult errands.
3. I discover that Is it Cake? is a real thing, not just invented for a gag on Ghosts. I only know this because my husband and daughter are fans.
3b. The episode of Successville in which Martin Kemp gets so confused that he forgets his own name will never, ever get old.
1. No tadpoles that I can see -- but something flips in the water just beyond my field of focus.
2. I take the muddy path so I can check on the orchids -- their spotted leaves are present among fine new grass blades.
3. Nick has bought the better kind of chocolate spread -- the one with loads of hazelnuts in it.
1. Getting back just before the rain.
2. Smearing filler into wall holes.
3. We have had a collection of empty Prime bottles for a while now because when this influencer-powered energy drink first came out, the children were sure they would be valuable one day. But now thinking has changed, and I get permission to put the lot in the recycling.
1. Unexpectedly, a chance for a coffee and a gossip. Our slower times have converged again.
2. I make a short (and rapid so I'm not noticed) diversion through the park and to see Bettany and friends playing on the swings.
3. In my absence, the bank has become covered in spring flowers -- violets, primroses in various shades of yellow and ochre, and anemones, and even some early bluebells.
1. Squirrel! Little skinny thing with a bottle brush of a tail crossing the snow to a twisted latch.
2. Where the snow was yesterday, among the bruised winter grass are yellow genapy flowers and white anemones and others that I don't know.
3. Up high where there's nothing but snow, rabbit tracks.
1. Today the ski instructors are wearing greatcoats against the falling snow.
2. At the food market, an English man without much French explains to the cashier that he is leaving tonight and that he is grateful for all her help.
2b. We go home a rather long way, despite the rain, wandering among the chalets. I catch the scents of wood smoke and of goats.
3. There is a spot from where, by some quirk of mountain acoustics, I can hear the piste bashers working far above us and over the valley.
1. To look up and see snowflakes falling from a blue sky.
2. Among the dark pine branches icicles shine, thawing and freezing, thawing and freezing.
3. My niece tells me about sleepily listening to my sister sing 'Feed the birds, feed the bag, tuppence a bird.'
1. Waking up to a dusting of snow down in the village -- just enough to brighten the drab winter grass and the pines up the mountain.
2. To find that the children have the same instructor as last year and that he remembers us.
3. We take the passage facile, still covered in powder snow, cut only by pair of ski tracks.
1. Finding treasure in the Oxfam bookshop. I only popped in to look for a card.
2. Bettany doesn't wear makeup out and about, but nonetheless her palettes are worn to holes from practice, practice, practice.
3. The change in sound quality when Nick switches on the Bluetooth speaker.
1. Carefully opening my poached egg so the yolk runs on to the toast.
2. The acer tree -- lime green edged with crimson.
1. We're due a delivery... but are we really? I haven't had any of the promised notifications and I can't find it on my account. I've got so much to do, and I don't want to be chasing through an automated contact system or waiting for a phone call. To hand the emails and reference numbers over to Nick and let him deal with it.
2. In my family at this time of year, it's reasonable to buy birthday cards in bulk and do a mass mailout. I stack them up and hand them over to Bettany with her special pens.
1. On this road, it seems as if intense blue grape hyacinths have forced their way out of every crack.
2. Under a garden hedge, the basket-weave bells of snake's head fritillaries.
1. To have a slim blue Mary Oliver book.
2. On the bank by the road, one cowslip, rather dazed.
3. Remembering that there is a kulfi lolly in the freezer.
1. The yellow stars are working their way along the forsythia hedge.
2. Two magpies playing in a puddle. Two squirrels chasing round a sycamore. Two rabbits with orange fur on the backs of their necks.
3. We are giving Zena Warrior Princess a try, Bettany and me, cuddled up on the sofa to watch fantasy wars fought across Iron Age Greece.
1. Plants which were gifts months ago have bloomed -- a paperwhite narcissus and pale yellow wallflowers. Both are scented if you care to bend down and try.
2. The bus picks up a man wearing hospital pyjamas. The driver knows him and spends the entire journey encouraging him to keep on with the work of turning his life around. As he gets off, he calls, 'No surrendah, big man!' and the driver agrees: 'I like the sound of that.'
3. Tim brings out some miniatures to represent our characters in his new game. The dice gave me an elf magic user with low charisma, and I'd imagined a scruffy, ill-favoured sort with rather rigid morals. But Tim finds a looming, creepy figure with an unhealthy pale face and an eerie white cloak. He looks like he has spent too long over his books in poor lighting, and perhaps made some bad bargains with unholy entities.
1. There is a heavy box of new books waiting on the stairs.
2. There's a warmth to the air that makes me wonder if I should have put on a lighter coat.
1. Among the faded cut daffodils that I'm putting on the compost heap there is one that will do for another day in a bud vase.
2. For the burger that Alec has cooked me, slices of tomato with the seeds discarded.
3. Tonight, I hear a poem that I really needed to hear, in which the teenagers in someone else's house sleep long and deep, just like my son.
1. This morning, while we are still lying in bed waiting for the bathroom to come free, I share my morning New York Times puzzles with Bettany.
2. At tea time, a dark chocolate biscuit and hot mug appear at my elbow.
3. I'm still enjoying the give of the new rug under my feet.
1. For lunch, there is a particularly good cauliflower and chickpea curry that Nick has made.
2. On my way over the common, I come across the place where people dawdle so they can watch the sunset tangling in the trees to the west. I stop for a moment, too.
3. High above us is a bit of a moon, veiled in the mist.
1. I didn't expect this: the avocado is perfectly ripe.
2. The world runs with water today -- all about me in the woods, there is movement.
3. I come downstairs before Nick calls supper because the spicy scents are so enticing, and I'm curious to see what he's making.
1. Halfway through the afternoon, I spot the builder carrying his power saw across the car park so he can lock it away in his truck.
2. Making a milkshake for Alec when he comes in from school.
3. Pulling the cut yarn through the final knitted stitch.
1. Waiting for me at breakfast is a pot of pinks, just perfect for the front garden.
2. Later in the day, Alec produces a card he has made for me -- a drawing of a robin in oil pastels, made from a photo he took on a day out we had together in the autumn.
3. I go to take out a dead fern to make room for my pinks, but find close to the soil, tight furled fronds, waiting for next week, or the week after.
1. I have been waiting since before Christmas, recently without much hope, for my wallflowers to bloom. And now there are bobbly little buds in the rosettes of leaves at the top of the stems.
2. At coffee time, Nick throws a cup of seed out for the birds.
3. Last thing at night I go in to check on Alec and find him tinkering with the poem he is writing for his English homework.
1. It's just handful of the very brightest celestial bodies scattered across a smeary sky -- but after weeks of flat orange night cloud, they seem quite precious.
2. Sarah Millican makes a particularly earthy observation and comments about our response, 'That was a move-on laugh.'
3. I have a piece of gravel in my hand when Alec, in his dressing gown, unbolts the front door.
1. The trick of slopping bottled lemon juice over apple slices to stop them browning.
2. In the hedge, withered sloes. Winter will end soon.
3. A few days late -- but we make time to look over the almanac for the month to see what to look out for in the sky and in the garden this month.
1. A leisurely chat on the phone.
2. On a sunny afternoon at the end of winter to walk around the market picking out cakes for tea.
3. Now, at last, I have time to roll up the old worn rug in the front room and put down a new one. The room immediately feels tidier and brighter and more intended.
1. We've had to hurry a bit because our train was delayed -- the relief of seeing our friends at the cafe table.
2. Sitting high up in the Barbican theatre to watch the magical production of My Neighbour Totoro. It has the gentle feeling on the original, and the sense of a modern world overlaid on a very, very old and mysterious world.
3. We took a gamble and jumped on a train that was going part of way, rather than wait for the very delayed and probably extremely crowded service that was going all the way home. Now we are standing on a cold platform at close to midnight, I have my doubts. But then connecting train -- the one we should have caught -- arrives. There are almost no seats, even this far down the line, and the air is a fuggy mess of beer and frustration. I feel like we made the right choice.
1. When the alarm goes, it's daylight, and my phone has turned off the blue light filter.
2. Early on, Bettany told me she hadn't slept well and asked if she could walk with me. I had to tell her that I've got meetings all day, so I won't have time to walk. But the call ends just before darkness falls, and we get out quickly before supper and walk around the park.
3. From the top of the park, I can view the last streaks and washes of the sunset.
1. Spotting the waxy blue tops of grape hyacinths among the tiny daffodils in my tiny back garden. They are a very welcome sight.
2. Before Nick even gets home, I can see him in social media coverage of the wargaming event he's at.
3. Alec puts butter and honey on a crumpet for me. Then he makes hot honey and lemon for Nick, who is still suffering with that cough.
1. A polite message from Alec to say that he may be late home from school because he is exploring with a friend.
2. When I come downstairs to the kitchen for my teatime break, I find two damp boys drinking cocoa and eating banana bread.
3. Last thing at night, when I'm always ready to wind down with some lightweight entertainment, discovering that a new series of Letters from a Long Marriage has dropped.
1. Interviewing tasks have been just outside my comfort zone, even when I was doing two or three a week. But now today's is done, and I have a recording that I can draw on for the article.
2. There's an edge to the air, and I do not regret picking up my gloves as I left the house.
3. For supper, everyone has a go at making savoury pancakes. They are delicious with ham and slices of Emmental.
1. Through the magic of baking, we swap a backlog of rapidly ripening bananas for two loaves of banana bread.
2. When your child asks for a thing that is easy to agree to. We sit side by side knitting and half listening to YouTube commentary about Stardew Valley.
3. Alec spends some time confessing to the things he ate from the fridge when he felt hungry overnight. 'I opened that smoked salmon. And I had some of the pasta, which was delicious. And some cottage cheese, which I didn't like.'
1. Coming to the end of the uphill section of my walk.
2. Rumours suggest that there is a shortage of black tea. One proposed reason is pirates in the Red Sea, which seems like something from history. I expect the reality is more along the lines of new sources speculating about a bad season in the tea gardens have caused shoppers to buy more than usual, which has amplified supply chain issues. Anyway, Nick has managed to get a box of tea, so we'll be okay for a while.
3. I think the GM is miffed that we dispatch his boss enemy with a single (rather enhanced) shot, but it does splatter everywhere in a very satisfying gelatinous manner, and we're pleased with our haul of experience points.
1. The dentist was mostly pleased with us so we walk across the common to the coffee van for hot drinks. We have them seated on a bench in the sun on what is probably the only fine day of half term.
2. Alec and I have a poke around in Waterstones, and then we buy a cake for tea. He picks one that he thinks Bettany will enjoy decorating.
3. We take the long way home to enjoy the 4pm sun on the sandstone houses.
1. I wake late and only when Bettany gets into bed beside me. We already have in the house one teenager keen to protect his space. So I try to be present for all these moments when Bettany wants me.
2. Today my snowdrops are properly out; and in another pot, deep purple crocuses stand tall, waiting for a their moment to open.
3. At this time of year, scented things with unseen flowers lie in wait on the cold street corners
1. There is time today for a longer walk than usual. I've set out early, and I've got a quiet day ahead.
2. I vacuum the sofa and find 20p.
3. Nick comments that he is starting to get used to the taste of the herbal tea I am making him drink for his cold.
1. There is a wild grass on the common that died and dried at the end of the summer. It is still standing in this season of faded greys and duns and drabs, shining bright as sunlight.
2. For Christmas, I got Alec access to a digital sheet music website so he can download any songs he fancies trying to play. It suddenly occurs to me that I, too, can use it. And within five minutes I'm picking out Peter Maxwell Davies' Farewell to Stromness.
3. Nick halves the last of the crazy expensive chocolate he bought me for Christmas and we eat it very slowly.
1. I go to wake Alec and he does a startley thing that I recognise from when he was a baby.
2. Bettany complains that everyone at school is playing Traitors and that she feels left out because she hasn't seen it. I tell her that in my meeting people were saying how entertaining it is and I felt a bit sad that I couldn't join in the conversation. So we agree to watch half an episode a night.
3. I still have an art book from Christmas that I haven't looked at yet. So as I have a spare evening, I spend it enjoying the pictures.
1. Sitting in the school hall and feeling quietly proud at my child's clear, firm voice.
2. To walk home across the common rather than along the road.
3. A chocolate tart with plenty of raspberries.
1. In the bushes to the side of the path, I catch movement. First one wren then a second shake their stubby tails at us.
2. It never gets old, seeing the waiter pour hot chocolate sauce over Bettany's favourite dessert. And I like getting a taste of the chocolate mousse hidden beneath.
3. At last -- right at the very end of the day -- I can sit down and listen to Alec's music practice.
1. To find snowdrops shouldering their way to the surface in one of my containers.
2. A few of the daisy leaves have frost scorched tips, but right down in the centre of the rosettes there are tight fists of flower buds.
3. ...and that's my tax return done.
1. My poached egg comes out neat and complete in the slotted spoon.
2. I'm not feeling great -- so I send myself home at 4pm.
3. We're down to the last few episodes of Gravity Falls -- the ones that make Bettany feel frightened or embarrassed for the characters. We watch them, though, because they're great episodes. We can hide under the blanket when it gets scary, and we can safely see how people might handle risky conversations and awkward social situations.
1. A robin on the path, his chest a fierce bright, bright scarlet among the duns and tired greens of the winter woods.
2. The fruit bowl is full of blood oranges, which I look forward to every year because nothing tastes quite like them, and there are Seville oranges in the shops, so we could -- if we felt like it -- make marmalade.
3. At the end of the day, there's a new Fortean Times waiting for me.
1. There's a storm coming in the middle of the day, and though it's grey, drizzly and Sunday, the park is busy with urgent people exercising dogs and toddlers and themselves so they can bear twelve hours confined.
2. I am playing for real and Bettany wins.
3. For Christmas, I asked for and received a set of headphones in a stretchy band that is much more comfortable for sleeping than over-ear or in-ear arrangements. Tonight, I'm very pleased to block out the noise of the storm with a long and serene hypnosis track.
1. Where I wait to cross the road I can see the woods at the top of the bank. On the leaf litter, two pigeons rest in the sun.
2. At coffee time, Nick suggests I sit on the other side of the table to take advantage of the winter sun's warmth.
3. I miss the moment the sun goes under the horizon -- but the sky is stained pink to orange to blue for at least twenty minutes after.
1. At lunch, we look in the fridge and find leftover pasta, and some mince, and some mushrooms (which the children hate). Pasta always tastes better when reheated -- and I've seen somewhere a research paper that suggests it's more nutritious, too.
2. To drop some books off at Oxfam, and to treat myself to a couple of paperbacks, which will go straight back there when I've finished with them.
3. I still occasionally startle at the miracle of getting a client on a video call to go through some edits.
1. The bus driver exclaims as we pass a man in shorts. 'How can he do it? Is he proud of his legs?'
2. To cheer up a very cold week, Bettany and I hang a few ice decorations on a tree in the garden. They sparkle in the last of the daylight, and then later, in the glow of the street lamps.
3. At games night we push further and further into the frozen city we've been exploring, finding an unexpected ally and many, many zombies.
1. He is watching me with a little pink tongue tip poking out.
2. In a charity shop -- for a Sunday, busy and alive with customers and volunteers -- two blue and white bowls of the kind we use a lot, £1 each.
3. The photos of the day out at Hastings Aquarium come home before Nick and Bettany do.
1. I wasn't expecting any sort of sun set because grey cloud has been lying over most of the afternoon -- but on the horizon, there's flash of pale yellow light.
2. While I'm going round the park at nightfall, I cross paths with a mother jogging. Her small boy is on a scooter with light-up wheels.
3. It's been a long working day, but now I'm lying in bed with a very innocuous radio comedy.
1. Cracking the ice on a puddle, and crunching across mud that is crusted with ice.
2. A robin glares at me as I pass through his territory.
3. Listening to musicians talking hesitantly about their process and getting a sense of the faith that goes into any act of creation.
1. Most leaves are cupping snow.
2. The sun in my face as I turn the corner.
3. Nick comes home with a new padded flannel lumberjack shirt, and he is very pleased with it. It makes me think of the grungy boys at my school who were not allowed to wear flannel shirts over their blazers instead of coats.
1. I did not particularly want to walk out this morning -- but here I am, and it's cold and there's wet snow in my face, but it is unusual, and it's fun to see people's faces scrunched against the cold, and to see school boys without coats hurrying to the shops for their breaktime snack.
2. My friends take great pleasure in comparing their socks -- bees and seagulls, both on an eau de nil ground. I'm disappointed that I put on plain black socks that do not spoil the line of my plain black tights and plain black slippers.
3. Tinned apricots with a few amaretto biscuits left over from Christmas.
1. Showing Alec how to make hot lemon and honey.
2. After the decorations are put away, an empty shelf.
3. We draw the blanket around ourselves against the cold from the open door.
1. I find myself laughing out loud at the melodrama as the voice actors depict a violent, gory scene -- but later, the implications of the rescue party's impossible, hopeless situation slips me into the narrative's emotional groove.
2. The recent storms have shaken down broken twigs covered with lichen from the trees. I like the creeping scales and the pallid greenish grey and greyish blues tendrils reaching for the world, so I pick up a few and bring them home.
3. The rain has washed much of the mud off my waterproof trousers.
1. It's before dawn when we open the blind, and a half moon is looking back at us.
2. At coffee time, I find a pair of Fox's chocolate ring biscuits in the bottom of the tin. One for each of us.
3. Bettany brings her myth atlas upstairs and we spend half an hour reading about Yoruba creation myths and Polynesian volcano goddesses.
1. Nick has made Bettany a nest of red blankets on the sofa where she can rest and get well.
2. We dart through the pouring rain to Caffe Nero for our morning break.
3. The wind in the park buffets me roughly. So I take my walk away down narrow paths and along the valley.
1. Today, Alec would like to walk with me.
2. To brush mud off my waterproof trousers so the dust blows away across the garden.
3. We watch David Attenborough telling the story of how fossil hunters dug the skull of a pliosaur out of a cliff. It is a study in natural history at is most joyful; but also in British people repressing their emotions. Everyone controls their excitement to a dignified, scholarly level; and at one point fossil collector Steve Etches releases himself from his colleagues' ecstatic celebratory hug with a, 'Now, now, none of that.'