Three Beautiful Things

1. I am allowed a look in the back of his sketchbook. 2. In response to a rumour, I divert our walk, and there is indeed frogspawn in Fir Tree Pond. 3. I turn and look back. There is a hazel tree putting out tiny leaves in a tentative way, as if not quite sure how they will be received.

1. I take the falling path and let the rolling fold of the hill shelter me from the biting March lion wind. 2. There's a woman on a bench by the cherry tree road and she's talking to herself... talking to the magpies... talking on her phone. 3. The washing-up is done to rule and I drop my apron, leave her bath running and hurry out the door to hear poetry in a pub.

1. And now the forsythia is more yellow stars than hedge. 2. Quiet café; bored barista; good coffee; reading task. 3. What I really like is a letter box with a good wide slot.

1. As I'm leaving, I ask for and am indulged, a biscuit for my hand to sustain me in the supermarket. 2. Cold drizzle prickles my face, shakes me awake. 3. At this time of day, another bus will be along very soon.

1. Today, I get to hear the morning birds and see her turn to look back up the hill. 2. I buy the best tangerines squatting fat and bright in their oversized skins. 3. Our youngest bans us from the kitchen and cooks supper. She has done all the little things that we would do if we were not always slightly frazzled -- like hiding the heap of things that gets abandoned on the end of the table, serving lettuce in a bowl instead of the salad spinner and grating a piece of parmesan.

1. In one hand I have Clive Oppenheimer's book about volcanoes; in the other my phone with Google Maps -- this is so much better than following along with an atlas. 2. While dusting, I find the book I was looking for a week and a half ago. 3. Ginger, garlic, onion, chicken and beans lined up behind the pan in a comet tail array.