1. I can't get over the gleaming masses of blackberries on either side of the path. There hasn't been much sun, though, and they are too tart to eat with much pleasure.
2. After a few wet days in the woods, mushrooms glow pale and cool in the deep shade.
3. Cutting back tired herbs to freshen the view down the garden.
1. What I really like is coming to my desk and seeing that the email I set last night to fire off at 8am has gone on its way, efficiently taking a task to the recipient.
2. I find the four stories I'm going to use within minutes of starting my weekly scan of the news. To luxuriate in sifting through my sources without a vague feeling of panic that I might not find anything suitable.
3. There was some bad feeling because I listened to I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue with the younger child but not the older. And so to be fair I listen to the episode a second time. I miss less of it because fewer of the jokes need explaining.
1. A soft jingle of bells. I cross paths with an older woman walking a wiry dachshund with milky eyes, chatting and encouraging as she goes.
2. The children come tumbling in with bags and a rucksack and a suitcase and fruit and flowers. The weekend's heavy peace is gone, but Grandpa assures me from the doorway that they've said thank you nicely, and that they've been well behaved.
3. He slept right through supper, but now we've settled into the evening with nail polish and a comedy on the radio, we can smell the curry that he is heating for himself down in the kitchen.
1. Today I have Nick completely to myself.
2. A fly in plates of blue-green armour sips a drop of water from the washing line, and I am there to watch.
3. Very roughly chopped onions, ginger, chilli go into the blender with heaped spoonfuls of spices, plus a little oil -- and a curry paste comes out.
1. When I come down, she is making pancakes to an invented recipe.
2. I let the parsley go to seed. I regret the drooping bitter leaves that are no use for salads; but I do like to see hoverflies hanging in the air and darting about the green umbels.
3. Quite casually, almost in passing, I find myself on a Zoom co-working call. The sense that others are working too seems so soothing and enticing that I slip into my task, stay immersed, even when I come to a difficulty. I'm glad I took this risk.
1. When I lift the watermelon out of the supermarket delivery crate, the rind gives unexpectedly. As usual with rejected produce, we're given a refund and told to keep it. When I cut it open and the flesh is soft and running with juice, its texture ruined. But there is no sign of rot and no taste of fermentation. So I put it through the food processor, strain 2L of bright red juice into a jug and idly look up watermelon cocktails. I make a granita, too, and the rest of the day is governed by hourly alarms calling on me to take it out of the freezer and fork the ice crystals into the middle. Meanwhile, the wasps enjoy scraping out the shells on the compost heap.
2. Nick shows me how to punch a hole in a condensed milk can. 'Oh!' says our son, 'You need a second hole so that air can get in, otherwise it won't pour.'
3. She brings a bottle of wine, and tall stems of matching deep red gladioli. We share the wine in paper cups and compare notes on the places where our caring responsibilities touch. As I walk home in the dusk, I am lightened.
1. A woman coming down the street smiles to see us fussing over our tired and crumpled daughter as she leaves the house on the last day of term.
2. I drink the last of the cherry juice before anyone else gets to it.
3. I save myself some time by sending him a set of pictures for cropping and resizing. The task (and the fiver) please him very much.
1. All across the common, ponds and ditches are full from last night's rain. Everything green is washed, the dust is laid and the earth steams in the sun rays falling between the branches.
2. The first few blackberries -- the ones on the end of the clusters -- are ready to pick and eat. I like this early time: there are so few ripe that there is no obligation to pick enough for a crumble.
3. I stop to see the chamomile on the lower cricket pitch. The white daisy stars are welcome now that Bellis perennis has finished for the year.
1. Our international food shop has moved into a new, larger building. I am very relieved that it smells exactly the same -- a mix of basmati rice from the huge sacks by the door, and every kind of spice.
2. She is rather cross because the white sandals she'd found in the children's department were not a good fit. Happily for us, the women's department has an identical design in a larger size.
1. I'm with the glossy white-haired ladies in hot pink and emerald green and china blue linen waiting for the department store to open its doors. The shop floor is as still as a stage set and I feel like I'm swimming among handbags because the atmosphere is so thick from the waiting. The PA announcement 'The store is now open' shakes the shut-in air and everything begins to move freely.
2. I have a quick dip in the bag of cosmetics that my friend has passed on for my daughter, and try out a nail polish. Three quick strokes on each nail, and a little stillness while it dries. It won't last 24 hours; but I miss the days when painting your nails didn't involve an appointment up town, and then another appointment a week later to have it taken off.
3. We've got a chat going for an event that is causing both anxiety and anticipation, and it helps a lot, taking the edge off the former and buffing up the latter.
1. Somehow the delivery of a fruit box is much more fun than the delivery of a box with vegetables.
2. I love the sound of all my cotton reels rolling to and fro as I lift the miniature chest of drawers down from the shelf. Nick's dad salvaged it from a flooded shop, and it's provided a lifetime supply of thread for two generations.
3. It's late and the light is not great, but I'm putting stitches as small as I can manage into a much-loved pair of pyjamas so they'll last a little longer.
1. Her tomato plants are finished, but a vine with tiny spiked cucumbers reaches over the path.
2. I hadn't realised how thirsty I was until I took the first sip of my drink.
3. To sit on the sofa with our youngest between us.
1. After a night of long rain, the common gently steams.
2. The air seems very cold on my skin after the run of heatwave days; but walking and talking warms me up.
3. I have to stand on tiptoes to watch the black and yellow bodies bundling over the spoonful of jam I put on the back wall to draw them away from the open windows.
1. Up and down the street lavender bushes are smutted black with bumble bees.
2. A tortoise shell butterfly is hanging around in the sunshine by the back door.
3. Large painted creatures -- owls, snails and hares -- have popped up on the streets we walk most days. The bright, unfamiliar colours and the larger-than-life scale keep snagging on our gaze.
1. It's not too long after 8am and I can already feel the heat in the air as I begin my walk on the common. My body responds to the warmth and the exercise by giving a little.
2. There are lots of tiny things I can do to make the hot weather more bearable -- and one of them is knocking off early.
3. As always, our radio hour is interrupted -- she would like Nick to go down and turn off her light.
1. Loving the green on green stripes of the watermelon rind.
2. As I go up the stairs, I can hear from his room the clinking of a spoon in a glass yoghurt jar.
3. I enjoy an evening of beer and silliness with the Gluten-free Trio -- just what I need to mark the delivery of a novel edit and the start of the heatwave.
1. I have done my errands and there is still half an hour to go -- writing time.
2. He is returned to us with his camera bag and a box of glossy black cherries.
3. We sit in bed and I read to her from a book we've both been looking forward to.
1. I slap the full water butt to enjoy the dull thump.
2. My herbs have doubled in size in the rain, which seems to have nourished them in a way my watering never can.
3. There's a heatwave expected, so we make a supermarket order of hot weather treats to make it easier to bear.
1. This has been frustrating, but the windows are now at least cleaner than they were.
2. There is country and western music on the Pantiles. Three serious children in cowboy boots are line-dancing in front of the bandstand.
3. Watching the rain sheeting across the car park, and hearing it hissing off the roof into my water butt.
1. To drift around in leggings and a very loose top made from polyester silk.
2. A quick catch-up on the phone adds some healthy texture to this day of frantic typing.
3. My alarm goes off reminding me about an astronomical happening: the sun is at aphelion. We can't observe it; it's after sunset, and anyway, distance from the sun is not perceptible by tiny folks like us standing on the planet's surface (we're interested in the celestial goings-on, but not interested enough to take measurements six months apart and spoil our eyes looking directly at the sun). But it's nice to know the moment, anyway.
2. We like everything about the pagoda -- including the long climb to the top -- but particularly the green and gold dragons on the roofs and the automata models on the ground floor. We turn handles to bring models made from pieces of tin tea caddies to jerky tick-tock life, depicting the trip to Guangzhou that inspired the architect, and the building of the pagoda.
3. A parade of shops and cafes, shaded by London Planes, crowds around Kew Gardens Station, curious and a little deferential.
1. I spot that he's brought along the copy of Puck of Pook's Hill that I left in his room a month or so ago.
2. Everywhere, there are ladies in yellow T-shirt emblazoned with 'Here to help'.
3. Late at night, as the air cools, the patter of rain -- just a few drops, but there's always the promise of more.
1. The grounding weight of my watering cans.
2. Our schedules mean that I eat supper alone in the peaceable, silent kitchen.
3. Now the children have gone to bed and it's darker and a little cooler, I can focus on writing one of the four articles I should have completed today.