1. John is playing with the dog while I’m waking up. The game involves him throwing a sock on the bed and her overly-excitedly bounding over to pick it up. The sock lands on my belly and she lands on my legs with a heavy thump to pick it up. After a few throws elsewhere, the sock lands on my face: she plods up my body, legs straddling my chest, then extracts the sock with the gentlest precision manoeuvre. The hairs on her chin tickle my cheek.
2. A perfectly proportioned tree just coming into leaf.
3. Neat new pointing in between the rough old stones.
4. As I sit on the cold concrete block outside the abandoned building, I regret changing our plan: instead of getting the bus home as usual, I suggested John (and Lily) pick me up on the way home from his mum’s (her grandma’s) house and we can go for a walk in Bingley. I have to wait more than half an hour but it’s worth it in the end: we have the park around the river to ourselves — well, except for some ducks. Lily paddles in the water and we walk around in the fading evening sun, catching up on our afternoons apart.
1. I spend most for the day grinding old paint from the metal railing and floor of our balcony. (We figure we’ll do it properly once and it shouldn’t need treating again while we’re here.) I’m covered in dust by lunchtime and for some reason, the dirt has particularly stuck in two circles over my boobs. We laugh when we notice.
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.