1. The daddy long legs, stretched out off centre on the plain blue wall, looks like an art piece.
2. She comes to get me, mid-afternoon, and tells me to sit on her sofa with her for a while. She wants to snuggle into me, to wriggle on me and get some love – and she can’t do that easily when I’m sat at my desk.
3. The instant acceptance is surprising – I help with costumes, we banter back and forth, and I get swatted with snowy tennis rackets.
1. I go down to see the chickens – to fill up their food & water and take some photos for The Really Good Life’s chicken update. The one with black flecks seems delighted to see me and is intrigued by the camera – she looks at it, peers inside at the lens snapping shut and pecks at my fingers holding it up. I laugh and laugh, then looking at the pictures I’ve taken, I laugh again.
2. We spend most of the dress rehearsal nagging them to speak clearer, add more character and please oh please learn their lines before Friday – but I make sure to single them out afterwards and thank them for the effort they’ve put in thus far. Later, with the older kids, amid stalled improvisations & funny word games, I chat to them about fake tan mishaps, bra straps and chlamydia tests in public toilets. I’m going to miss them a lot over the summer.
3. They break the hug when the bus arrives and as she turns to the door, she licks her lips. Eyes shining & cheeks flushed, he watches her as she pays and moves up the bus. She sticks her tongue out as she passes him as if freeing him to go but he stays until the bus pulls away.
4. I’m hardly wake enough to realise what Boron’s doing – positioning himself under my arm for a cuddle. In my mostly-asleep state, I shuffle around him to get comfortable and he places his head next to mine on the pillow. Like Carla last week, he’s soft like a teddy bear but purring. I like when the nights are cooler and the cats remember where the warmth is.
1. I spend most for the day grinding old paint from the metal railing and floor of our balcony. (We figure we’ll do it properly once and it shouldn’t need treating again while we’re here.) I’m covered in dust by lunchtime and for some reason, the dirt has particularly stuck in two circles over my boobs. We laugh when we notice.
2. They look to me for reassurance and I laugh and smile at the right times, like an inverse Simon Cowell.
3. Waiting at the bus stop, my mum tells me about the sunset in Southport – strangely orange over the sea. I tell her in Bingley, the sky is still blue but the clouds to the west make the hills look taller than they are. I’m sat opposite the old Bradford & Bingley building – which the giant vinyl banners tell me is now for sale or to let – and notice the neglected trellises on the upper balconies.
1. Noise from the chickens wakes us before 8. It’s not too loud (quieter than the birdsong but more persistent like the sound of distant Canadian geese) but we’ve been listening for it all night. We go down together to let them out.
1b. I sit and wait for the chickens to emerge from their pop hole and explore the run for the first time. It’s a long but peaceful wait. A pair of Great Tits take an interest in the gentle clucking coming from within the coop. The sun dapples the wood and makes the beck shine like diamonds. Eventually they all come down the ramp and after taking some photos, I leave them to their exploration. On the way out, I have an overly optimistic look in the nest box but it turns out I wasn’t being too hopeful – our first egg is waiting.
2. We’re making pleasant, polite small talk when A spots the couple on the lawn outside – from the way they’re sat, it’s not obvious but subtly suggestive that “couple” is the right word. Within seconds, the small talk gives way to an excited flood of gossip.
3. The kids in the advanced group seem incapable of doing any improvisations at the moment without them quickly getting very very wrong. Last week saw a scene around copiously scratching teenagers with genital herpes and this evening, they create a soap opera set in an old people’s home with the most sexually energetic elderly people ever, Yorkshire Tea flavoured condoms and the line “I’ve got sexual energy running through all my varicose veins”. We’re all crying with laughter during the rehearsals but it doesn’t seem to go over as well as we’d hoped when they perform it for the others. The journey – creating the characters, the setting, the blocking – is more important than the destination, and the journey was a hoot.
1. I call John when he’s on his way home. “I’ve found heaven,” I tell him. “Really?” he asks, “are you phoning from there now? How’s the mobile reception?”. In fact, I’ve found yet another new part of the woods – daily walks for over three months and we’re still finding new bits – and it’s beautiful. A small glade at the hill, out of the way and as I enter, two red butterflies dance above the waist high grass. Judging by the path and the grass, no one has been here for months – or next to no one. There is a crushed crop circle of grass to one side of the clearing – is this where the deer sleep?
2. The bus driver is incredulously when I get up to stand near the door – had I really just waited ten minutes at the start of his route to go one stop? No, I explain, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying when I was sat down. I think he likes I’ve made the effort and we chat about holidays, travelling and the internet until the bus fills up.
3. If all kids were like them, I’d become a teacher in a shot. Wednesday nights at drama are amongst my favourite times of the week.
1. Get up. Wee. Feed cats. Get dressed. Take dog for a walk. Feed dog. Have shower. Get dressed again. Sit with John as he wakes up. Have breakfast.
2. We’re working in our office at last. After months of stagnation, the room has been transformed in the last few weeks and is now beautifully bright and airy. The wide desks seem too big to start with but are quickly filled with paper. At the end of my working day, I put my laptop away and retreat upstairs, able to leave work behind for the first time in four years.
3. They make me laugh so hard and for so long that my lips stick on my gums when my smile finally falls.
© 2024 Louisa Parry
