1. Daisy-cat jumps up onto my knee without hesitation. Yes, he wants food but also, hug please?
2. We watch birds from the kitchen window while we wait for our lunch to ping. (We start watching Strange hunting something in the undergrowth but when she goes behind the elder tree, we switch to watching the birds.) In the middle distance, there are jays, magpies and collared doves, and upclose, amongst the fruit trees, there are robins and tiny tits. A giant crow flies overhead.
3. Aeroplane trails streak the sky. As we’re looking up at the older ones – the ones weaving between each other at some incomprehensibly (to us, right them) high altitude – a new plane enters our field of vision: it’s a lot lower (which reinforces quote how high the others are) and banking, having just taken off from the airport just a few miles away. John starts marvelling at the technology – how just magically it is – and I declare that there are more people flying over our heads at that moment than we have communicated with all day. We both have a little “mind … blown” moment then laugh.
3b. There is a deflating helium balloon caught in the undergrowth. We throw it around for Lily – who gets over her usual balloon fear to play. It takes her a while to understand the new physics – she jumps far too early, expecting it to fall at the speed of everything else she encounters, and faceplants, then, on another go, she hangs in the air mouth open for what feels like tens of seconds (but is probably just a couple) waiting for it to descend. Finally she readjusts and successfully chases it back and forth. We bend double with laughter.
4. Tweaking the formatting of something again and again until it’s juuuuuust right. It’s a little annoying but a lot addictive.
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