Category3BT

Based on the Three Beautiful Things project by Clare Law, I try to write about three pleasant things from my day.

3BT – spooner, best bread, treat, rewatch

0. Lily creeps up the bed to be spooned as we’re going to sleep and though she goes back to the foot of the bed during the night, she returns for further spooning as we wake up.

1. The bread from the Italian deli makes for the best bacon butties we’ve had in a long time.

2. A tired, lazy day is a cat-filled day – Strange and Kaufman spoon with me when I’m lying down (then Strange plonks herself in my lap just before bedtime) but most specially, Tilda snuggles into my legs as I crochet. A Tilda cuddle on the sofa is always a rare treat.

3. Lacking the energy to do anything else, we rewatching the very first episodes of Game of Thrones to see how it’s changed – and to see what has paid off.

3BT – tickle, nonsense/looking over Red Beck/no outline, park/beat/warm

1. The dog wants me to tickle her belly and her chest, so I do.

2. Z declares his dad is “full of nonsense” because he doesn’t know everything. We assert that we’re full of nonsense too, and Lily is full of double nonsense.

2b. Standing at the top of the slope watching the glistening stream curve and wind below.

2c. Another Z declaration: he wants to know if the Twirly Woos are real. When I ask him what he thinks, he tells me they don’t have a black line around them so they must be real.

3. We have time for a quick walk in the park at sunset. Lily runs around aimlessly, as she always does when presented by a flat expanse.

3b. The rounded beat of the drum.

3c. Warm popcorn.

3BT – glazed/shared interest/rim feature/base, scatter, watching/game

1. Two pots have glazed brilliantly – one neatly and the other playfully.

1b. Chatting about an obscure band with someone twice my age.

1c. I decide to finish off the rim with a touch of white. I hope it’ll look good when it comes out of the kiln because it looks ace now.

1d. I don’t particularly like any of the colours I’ve made but I like the satin base – I’ll use that again.

2. Squirrels scatter as we approach the squeeze stile.

3. I mention the ISS is passing over and pop outside to see it – when I point it out so they can look at it through the window, they all join me on the patio instead.

3b. A good game grows in length as we all improve – and a lucky throw wins it for me.

3BT – shade & sun, that one please, filling up, not again

1. The coolness of the shade before it is touched by the sun. Conversely, the warm stones of the patio as I fetch in the dry blankets.

2. Strange comes in meowing and we chat for a little while. She tells me, with a meow, that she’d like some cat food instead of milk please. (This might seem a no brainer for most cats but ours are obsessed with drinks – Strange and Kaufman have picked milk over tuna – TUNA – before now and Tilda runs across rooms positively giddy if offered a bowl of fresh from the tap water.)

2. The greenhouse filling up with seedlings.

3. The little girl silently watches us eat. She casts wide eyes at my waffles but is really interested in John and his colourful gelato. Every time he turns to her (smiling), she turns away almost with an eye roll: “I can’t believe I got caught watching again!”

3BT – ham, squirt, loops, soup

1. Good ham.

2. I finish a bottle of Calpol and decide, before throwing them away, to make a mini fountain out of the syringe-ish dispensers. I expect them to squirt up perhaps a foot in the air and am overcome with laughter when the water shoots out with such force that it hits the ceiling and cascades down on John. I refill and take them out onto the balcony: a sharp jab on the plunger sends the water pleasantly far across the garden.

3. Frogging long abandoned yarn projects in anticipation of making something new. The wool will need relaxing but for now I enjoy its ringlets.

4. Dead veg & Polish sausage soup for dinner: yum.

3BT – identify, formed, warm

1. I finally identify a mystery plant I was given as a gift three years ago.

2. A small sheet of ice, dimpled from the formed plastic packaging.

3. It’s still t-shirt weather at 5.30pm when we head out for a walk. The dirt by the curb has gone from bog to dry cracking dust in just a couple of days.