3BT – Page 196 – Louisa Parry

3BT – those glorious days, bugs & shoots, happy crimes

1. I stay in bed longer than intended, re-reading ‘How I paid for college’ by Marc Acito. It’s one of my favourite books because the spirit reminds me of the best bits of my own youth – although there are less illegal antics and crazy Austrian step-mums in my story.

2. When I finally do get up, I potter in the porch. I get rid of the dead chilli plant that’s been a breeding zone for bugs for the last few weeks and note which of the houseplants have shutdown for winter. At the far end of the porch though, it’s more positive – the black seed trays are spotted with tiny green shoots, the start of next year’s harvest.

3. John keeps randomly saying how much he loves our new house/kitchen/bedroom/garden. After one such exclamation, I tell him he keep saying stuff like that. “I’m just dead happy,” he says with a smile, “is that a crime?”

3BT – only us, chicken soup, close up

5/12/2009 / louisa / 2 Comments

1. John’s still ill so instead of a day of deep-cleaning at the old house (something we’ve been putting off for a while), we spend the day in front of the stove, watching cartoons with the cats draped around us. With the curtains closed, it feels like nothing outside of the room exists – just us five here, in the sleepy warmth.

2. John requests chicken soup for lunch. All the soups we eat on a regular basis are meat-free — I learned to love soup and how to make it well when I was vegetarian, so I’m less than comfortable making meaty ones — but the creamy chicken is a welcome novelty, pure comfort food.

3. We leave some nuts out on the kitchen window sill and one of the squirrels who lives in the nearby elderberry tree pops by for a snack. We watch in silent awe as it pulls away the papery skin from the peanut and nibbles. Just inches away through the glass, we examine its solid black eyes, its fluffy white belly and the dexterity of its claws.

3BT – too tight, warm, discussion and snow

4/12/2009 / louisa / 1 Comment

carla-sunshine 0. (From last night) I always cast on too tightly, making the first row of knitting on circular needles a right pain in the arse. By comparison, the second row at the correct tension is a joy and I happily, mindlessly, knit two, purl two until the item is finished.

1. After nearly a decade in a north-facing house, the cats love that the bedroom and living room in the new house are sunny in the mornings. Even in December, the sun streaming through the window is warm enough to make them toasty to the touch. We make sure there are comfortable places to sit to make up for their years of gloominess.

2. After a lunch of manchego cheese and Iberico ham (again, our holiday lives on in the food we carried back with us), we discuss genes and memes, fire and water.

3. John’s ill so we decided on comfort food for tea: fish and chips from the great place at the end of the road. The vinegar sizzles as it hits the straight-from-the-fryer fish and the woman serving remarks that she somehow got some salt in her mouth. We joke about how she must have been throwing it everywhere for that to happen, and she adds: “I’m pretending it’s snowing. I can’t wait until it’s snowing.”

3BT – neighbourly, 7 people laughing, holiday grease

3/12/2009 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. John catches one of our lovely neighbours putting out our recycling bins – after being away, we’d forgotten what day it was but our neighbour didn’t want us to miss out on the monthly collections.

2. A day in the office, the first full team meeting since P started a fortnight ago; a day of tea, progress and laughter. At the end of the day, when everyone else has gone, G and John look at old Land Registry documents and make jokes.

3. The oil from the chorizo yellows the potato. Our trip to Madrid lives on.

3BT – balance, beer and books

2/12/2009 / louisa / 0 Comments

new-books 1. As I wait for the bus to Bingley, I spy a crow perched in a tree near the bus stop. It’s too heavy for the tiny, spindly branches but it finds balance anyway.

2. After class, Katherine picks me up from Shipley and we go out to dinner at Coopers in Guiseley. At the end of the meal, we decided to both buy take home pints of ale for our Johns – she gets a Black Sheep, I get a Ruby Cascade but we somehow get them confused on the way to the car. On instant messenger later, we both simultaneously say “john doesn’t think his tastes like black sheep. he says either way it’s nice” then laugh.

3. I get home to find our book delivery has arrived. The first new-new books I’ve bought in a while – two by Richard Yates, two by TC Boyle. The off-white pages are flat and smooth.

3BT – light outside, mushrooms, future warmth

1/12/2009 / louisa / 0 Comments

I’ve been meaning to start my own Three Beautiful Things posts since I found Clare’s blog over a year ago but I’ve never got around to it aside from using Twitter for the occasional beautiful things style tweet. I figured I shouldn’t start any more projects unless I could commit the time to maintaining them but while we were in Madrid last week, I thought I should just frickin’ give it a go. Don’t know how long I’ll manage to keep it up but here goes nothing ;)

1. We came back from Madrid after dark last night but the sun is shining when we wake up. I look out into the garden – at the trees, at the beck at the bottom of the garden, at the sky stretching out into the distance – and smile. Nice to see everything is still where it should be after the bad weather.

2. Later on, I venture into the garden with two of the cats, Carla and Boron. We’ve been going on walks together around the garden (and the woods next door) since we moved into the house in October. Left untouched by cats and humans for over a week, a huge cluster of mushrooms has grown on a log. I run up the stairs to the house to look them up in my mushroom identification book.

3. Workwise, I have a bad day catching up on everything – I’m still behind as the afternoon passes into evening but John insists we both stop work anyway. After dinner, I grab some lovely pinky-purply wool from my stash and crochet up a neckwarmer. It’s improvised but it turns out well.

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