3BT – Page 168 – Louisa Parry

3BT – odd one out, bargain, that time of the evening

After a break of 18 months or so, I’m going to try Three Beautiful Things-ing again – I still read Clare’s wonderful updates everyday but fell out of the habit of doing them myself. I didn’t stop for any particular reason last time, just got out of the habit then The Really Good Life took over that bit of my brain for a while, but I do like the 3BT format, so here goes :)

1. The lone starling walking amongst the pigeons in the market square.

2. The huge stash of good quality, nearly-new John-sized jeans in the charity shop – and on buy-one-get-one-free day too.

3. It’s drink time for everyone: while the kettle boils for our tea, I refill the water bowl for the waiting dog and the cats curl around each other lapping up their saucer of milk.

Frozen dew, like a rocket, stupidly goopy, pics or it didn’t happen

16/12/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. It’s cold but doesn’t look too frosty, so I can’t understand why the grass is crunching so loudly underfoot. Then, picking up a stick for Lily, I see them – thousands, millions, of individually frozen dew drops decorating each blade of grass. I tip some into my hand and they almost immediately melt into puddles.

2. Lily watches the other springer run around. Her stare is part caution, part remembrance of things past. She can run fast, with her ears flapping behind her and her tail helicoptering her along, but it’s nothing compared to him.

3. The Brightbox December meal is full of laughter, good cheer and even better food. After a grown-up main course featuring a lot of green vegetables, I have a nutella and mascarpone calzone for dessert. It’s as ridiculously sickly as it sounds. (Bonus: where we’re sat at the end of the table, we watch it being made – the giant dollop of nutella, the striking white mascarpone, the crimping of the crust then the flickering flames of the oven reflecting off its crust while cooking.)

4. Lily spent the evening with our neighbours – they drop her back to our house just before we get home. We ask her what they got up to together but, of course, she can’t tell us and that makes us a bit sad. Then John logs onto his email – they’ve sent us a photo of Lily stretched out on their kitchen floor, getting a belly rub from Ade while their dog Benny licks Ade’s ear. Everyone in the picture looks very happy and we laugh.

Sky colours, the treat, waiting

28/11/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. In the horses’ field, I turn away from the racing cocker spaniel to look for our slower springer but instead I find my attention stolen by the sky: glowing pink clouds on dazzling blue.

2. She knows I have something in my pocket but she doesn’t know what it is yet. Her eyes widen as I slowly reveal the bone but she doesn’t move, not at first, not until it’s nearly all exposed and she knows it’s definitely for her. A gentle paw touch my leg as she asks for it.

3. The last Thursday of the month is Leeds Ruby Thing so an evening home alone for me and the animals. I distract myself with computer games but Lily watches patiently at the dining room door, waiting for him to come home.

3BT – poser, whuuschoom, snow-sense

28/11/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. The swan stand on the frozen canal, tall and proud, waiting for its photo to be taken.

2. The ice reverberates as the rock hits it. It sounds like electric power cables humming in the wind.

3. The instinctual knowledge is us all – knowing when it’s “too cold to snow” and to be able to recognise the colour of the sky, the quality of the light, just before the flakes start to fall.

Spot on, Stanislavski would be proud too, the Movie Thing

24/11/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. The perfect amount of brown sauce on a bacon buttie.

2. I like that I can satisfy their glances asking for reassurance. But I like it even more when they get so lost in the moment that they forget to look for me.

(2a. A silly one. I make a joke about “team Louisa” and the group take delight in the moniker. We have a hands-in-a-circle Team Louisa roar before heading into the performance space – which replaces their nerves with laughter.)

3. To come home to a house full of lovely, laughing geeks and a table full of pizza and treats.

Body clocks, always something new, just right

22/11/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. My phone battery dies overnight but our – and the animals’ – body clocks wake us right on time.

2. The bracken, brambles and balsam have died away to reveal new paths through the woods and fields. We walk them together, her tail spinning, my heels sinking into the leaf mulch.

3. I love homemade bread – the substance and process of it – but every now and then, a fluffy floury bun from the supermarket is the most divine thing in the world.

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