Frozen dew, like a rocket, stupidly goopy, pics or it didn’t happen
1. It’s cold but doesn’t look too frosty, so I can’t understand why the grass is crunching so loudly underfoot. Then, picking up a stick for Lily, I see them – thousands, millions, of individually frozen dew drops decorating each blade of grass. I tip some into my hand and they almost immediately melt into puddles.
2. Lily watches the other springer run around. Her stare is part caution, part remembrance of things past. She can run fast, with her ears flapping behind her and her tail helicoptering her along, but it’s nothing compared to him.
3. The Brightbox December meal is full of laughter, good cheer and even better food. After a grown-up main course featuring a lot of green vegetables, I have a nutella and mascarpone calzone for dessert. It’s a ridiculously sickly as it sounds. (Bonus: where we’re sat at the end of the table, we watch it being made – the giant dollop of nutella, the striking white mascarpone, the crimping of the crust then the flickering flames of the oven reflecting off its crust while cooking.)
4. Lily spent the evening with our neighbours – they drop her back to our house just before we get home. We ask her what they got up to together but, of course, she can’t tell us and that makes us a bit sad. Then John logs onto his email – they’ve sent us a photo of Lily stretched out on their kitchen floor, getting a belly rub from Ade while their dog Benny licks Ade’s ear. Everyone in the picture looks very happy and we laugh.
Sky colours, the treat, waiting
1. In the horses’ field, I turn away from the racing cocker spaniel to look for our slower springer but instead I find my attention stolen by the sky: glowing pink clouds on dazzling blue.
2. She knows I have something in my pocket but she doesn’t know what it is yet. Her eyes widen as I slowly reveal the bone but she doesn’t move, not at first, not until it’s nearly all exposed and she knows it’s definitely for her. A gentle paw touch my leg as she asks for it.
3. The last Thursday of the month is Leeds Ruby Thing so an evening home alone for me and the animals. I distract myself with computer games but Lily watches patiently at the dining room door, waiting for him to come home.
Spot on, Stanislavski would be proud too, the Movie Thing
1. The perfect amount of brown sauce on a bacon buttie.
2. I like that I can satisfy their glances asking for reassurance. But I like it even more when they get so lost in the moment that they forget to look for me.
(2a. A silly one. I make a joke about “team Louisa” and the group take delight in the moniker. We have a hands-in-a-circle Team Louisa roar before heading into the performance space – which replaces their nerves with laughter.)
3. To come home to a house full of lovely, laughing geeks and a table full of pizza and treats.
Body clocks, always something new, just right
1. My phone battery dies overnight but our – and the animals’ – body clocks wake us right on time.
2. The bracken, brambles and balsam have died away to reveal new paths through the woods and fields. We walk them together, her tail spinning, my heels sinking into the leaf mulch.
3. I love homemade bread – the substance and process of it – but every now and then, a fluffy floury bun from the supermarket is the most divine thing in the world.
Three beautiful things from the last five minutes
1. A scratch-scratch-scratch. I open the door and a little boy & two little girls are waiting together to be admitted into the room of cosy-warm.
2. In previous days, I may have been sad that the pie tin was too big for the cats but instead I get to be happy that it’s perfectly sized for the dog.
3. The cats flank me, one either side of my laptop. Boron leans in for head kisses (my lips are on his head as I type this) while Carla simply purrs.
Four beautiful things to end a frustrating day
1. Six are huddled together on the perches and the seventh in the nest box she’s still not outgrown. They cluck softly as I peek in to check they’re all in bed. Turn out the light. You’re letting the cold in. Go away, I’m trying to sleep here.
2. We spend a lot of time together, a LOT. But quality time is still a rare treat.
3. She’s so excited to see him that she doesn’t know which way to run so she runs every way at once.
4. Sat on my shoulder, his fur is so soft and warm against my ear. I wonder how I can convince the other cat to sit on the other side and be another purring earmuff.
For the sake of it, I heart Coopers, by proxy
1. The two dogs run around fighting over THE BEST STICK IN THE WORLD while he builds a dam in the beck. His handiwork will divide the water more equally between the two paths, so the one close to the path flows better. I know it’ll be washed away next time it rains heavily but it doesn’t matter. I tell him his hands must be freezing and he just smiles. The dogs play on.
2. Smoked mackerel fishcakes with my favourite salad leaves on a mild horseradish sauce base. Perfectly cooked chicken breast with sweet potato dauphinoise, with carrots, broccoli and deliciously tangy red cabbage. Lemon and ginger cheesecake without, our favourite waiter tells us proudly, fingerprints in the dusted icing sugar.
3. We rock back and forth in a hug as I tell him about the meal. He says he enjoyed it from just what I was saying. Then he goes in the bath and I sit next to him in the warm bathroom and enjoy that by proxy as well.
Relief, fishing for chickens, the pleasure of warmth and sugar
1. To wake up and find that after all that noise, there is no storm damage to the garden. Or rather, the only damage is both minor and desirable.
2. We drive out to see our chicken man. The views are different but as equally as stunning as they were on the balmy June evening of our last visit. He, and his lovely old dog, take us around the different sheds and we pick four girls to bring home – two pure breeds and two black rocks. He catches them with a strong fisherman’s net: “the best thing I ever bought”, he tells us.
3. A well timed cup of sweet tea.