1. Sometimes our banter is so perfectly timed that it sounds almost scripted (in a good way).
2. A flash of red reflected in the stream as John steps from bank to bank.
3. The design evolves step by step until it’s just right.
Tagwork
1. I find a polka dotted feather on the ground in the woods – black with white spots. I show the boys then keep it tucked in my hand, to take it home and add it to my collection.
2. “Well, that was nearly embarrassing,” I tell one of my colleagues over IM, “the cat just stood on the “x” key and nearly sent you a row of kisses.” He laughs.
3. The chicken, the one with the black flecked neck, eats the corn from my hand – a first for Team Peach. Later, they all eat from John’s hand and the black flecked one jumps then flies up to sit on my head. I think they’re starting to like us.
4. She’s on me now, rubbing and writhing around on my wrists as I’m trying to type. Now she’s sat on the arm of the chair, looking at me, purring with her paws tucked under at the front. I reach over to tickle her head but she pushes her chin forward instead, telling me to stroke under there instead. My hands are dry & tender – swollen joint hangover from the work I did yesterday & from an assortment of nettle strings today – but the pain is temporarily relieved when I touch her smooth and refreshingly cool fur.
-1. (from last night) I don’t realise how stifling it is in the house until I open the door to let Lily out for her bedtime wee. The comparatively cool air is wonderfully refreshing. I breath deeply and the skin on my arms tingles.
0. (also from last night) I finished reading ‘Miss Pettrigrew Lives For A Day’ by Winifred Watson. A wonderfully uplifting tale about seizing the day. A new one for the favourites shelf.
1. A full to-do list becomes an empty one over the course of two hours.
2. Twice today, when I’ve been watching the chickens, two of them have scratch-scratch-peered at exactly the same time. It looks like they’re synchronised clones in an animation or music video.
3. The job – repotting the 4ft tall tomato plants – is so much easier when there are two of us doing it.
1. I add the tomato ketchup to the sandwich but it keeps slipping off onto my fingers. Lick, lick, lick.
2. I finish my day working on a design/DTP project. It’s a while since I’ve done any work in Inkscape and it’s a lot of fun. The event the work is for should be a lot of fun too.
3. I take a decaff Earl Grey and a Wispa to bed with me. It’s decadent but delicious.
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.
1. (I sort-of mentioned this on Clare’s blog the other week but I’ve not mentioned it here yet so…) Where we lived in Leeds, it was green — the lawns of the park, the trees of the woods leading down to the canal — but north facing houses & gardens meant no flowers, no colour, permanent shade. Here, as I walk along the road, there are cheerful spring flowers, vibrant bedding plants, delicate tree blossoms and surprising wild blooms. The cottages with their cottage gardens, hanging baskets against stained black stone. A single red tulip. Next door’s garden spilling out through their front gates. It feels like the first spring in nearly a decade.
2. The pink meat falls heavily to kiss its own reflection in the glossy marinade.
3. It seems so obvious after we try it – why hide awkwardly in the corner when we can float in the middle of the room?
© 2024 Louisa Parry