Thursday, March 28, 2024

Book treasure, worn and speaker.

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.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Poached egg, acer and bramble.

1. Carefully opening my poached egg so the yolk runs on to the toast.

2. The acer tree -- lime green edged with crimson.

3. Bramble shoots, tender green, point straight up at the changeable sky.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Due, birthday cards and just a trial.

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.

3. A horse chestnut tree essays a just few new leaves -- testing the air with languid green fingers.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Grape hyacinths, snake's head and chimes.

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.

3. We keep hearing the chimes of the ice cream van, sometimes near, sometimes far in the serpentine suburban ways and parks and avenues and drives. Our paths never cross, though. So we go home the long way to pass a shop with a freezer and we get something for Alec, too.

Friday, March 22, 2024

Mary Oliver, cowslip and kulfi.

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.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Forsythia, twos and on telly.

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.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Gift plants, hospital pyjamas and no charisma.

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.

Book treasure, worn and speaker.

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 noneth...