Based on the Three Beautiful Things project by Clare Law, I try to write about three pleasant things from my day.
Just two today.
1. The hold music is ‘Five Years Time’ by Noah and the Whale. I’m almost disappointed when the person answers. I tell him I liked their hold music and he laughs.
2. I solve one of the things that has been giving me low level (but increasing) stress over the last few months and it spurs me on to address the other things in that category too.
1. Three reds in the pan – both the vermilion peppers and dark maroon kidney beans stand out against the rich tomato sauce.
2. Even though I’m scared of the semi-dark (thanks to a lifetime of why-won’t-the-light-switch-work nightmares), showers without the light on are strangely soothing.
3. Carbon meows excitedly after he returns from a brief, rare excursion to the outside world. He runs between us showing off how cold he is, before settling on a blanket to warm up again.
1. The toast is evenly brown and perfectly crisp. The pate is strongly flavoured but delicious, and stirs in me the desire to make my own. I add it onto my “things to make” list.
2. Throughout the day, all the cats visit me at my desk. They sit on my knee between my body and the table, and purr as I stroke their soft-soft chests while I work.
3. The water plunks when it hits the growing body of water in the cup but plinks! (with an exclamation mark) when it hits the edge.
4. Katherine and I watch dogs parading (in Best in Show) and eat Jaffa cakes, while Joe murmurs over the baby monitor.
1. Every night I go to sleep with my fingers entangled in John’s hair. (When he shaves his head, I just rest my fingers on his head instead. It’s more tactile when he has hair.)
2. The horses are back again in the field around the corner. On our way back from walking to the shops the long way around, we stop to feed them small chunks of carrot and stroke their noses. Later, John, who doesn’t really like horses, says it’s one of his favourite moments of the day.
3. The lasagne is perfect.
1. Even though we don’t have to get up particularly early for work – and work from home, it’s still a pleasure to have an alarm-less morning at the weekend.
2. I nibble off the piece of bacon extruding from the bread and it’s delicious – perfectly salty, perfectly crisp, bacon at its best.
3. Despite being together nearly all day every day, sometimes we don’t actually see each other that much – working together or working in the same room but not together, or as has been the case recently, being in the same but being ill aren’t in any way “quality time”. Today – a day off work and the first day neither of us has felt particularly ill – is a “quality day”, even though we don’t do much. We sing silly songs with each other, we make dumb jokes, we provide sarcastic commentary to the media we’re watching, we awww at cats, we tell stories and we kick ideas around. Even now, when I’m in bed hurriedly writing this, John interrupts to ask about the use of “had had” in the book he’s reading and we have a discussion about that, “it it”, “in in” “that that” and my favourite, “not not”.
1. The olive oil has turned gelatinous on the cold window sill.
2. The thrill of seeing the Twitter textbox count rise from -55 to 0 with rewording and careful cropping.
3. John decides it’s time to leave the house for the first time in 2010 and even though I’m starting to feel ill, I decide to join him for some fresh air. We walk the short way to the shops – to the chemist, to the grocers – to pick up supplies. John decides to do a running-slide down the slope near our house on the way back. Our neighbour in the house at the end of the slope watches and laughs from her kitchen window as he rides the ice around the corner. By the time we get home, my floating head pain has dissipated.
© 2025 Louisa Parry