Later on, they play together in the garden. We watch over them like proud mums as they jump about with their helicopter tails.

2. I can smell garlic on the way up the hill but it’s only after leaving the meadow that I spot the former stream bed covered in wilting leaves. I decide to collect some more seed pods but without a basket, have to carry them in a bunch by their stems. I feel like I’m carrying a bouquet designed in the atomic era.

3. In turn, both of the cats visit my knee and I close my eyes to fully appreciate how they feel, sound and smell.

4. I’m so glad when I get a text just before midnight to say he’s on the train, the last train. Just over three hours later, I wake up suddenly and so do the cats and the dog. I hear keys in the door, a shuffling, a quiet unmistakeable cough. Lily’s tail starts banging on the bed – she knows who it is too.

Related posts:

1. 3BT – my dream guy, rocking out, feeding, the future
2. 3BT – planning, unnatural love, last snowy walk
3. 3BT – purring, suits you, changes, soup, window

(1b. There are a couple of plants in the bed and the remnants of daffodils. I transplant what I can but one of the plants falls apart on the way. I salvage its blood red blooms.)

2. John explains that the wild food walk last weekend has changed how he looks at grassland – he no longer sees “just green” but the huge variety of different plants growing in a small area. We look around and spot sorrel, lady’s smock & purple thistles amongst the grass, clover & buttercups at our feet. Across the beck, the bank is full of flowering ramsons & chickweed, a cloud of white flowers giving way to late bluebell wilting up the hill. Definitely not “just green”.

3. I blow bubbles from the balcony. The wind catches them and they float up and out over the gardens.

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1. 3BT – getting closer, pancakes, park, gazing
2. 3BT – once our own, the afternoon’s colours, nightmare-inducing
3. 3BT – in the woods

2. Finding this quote in the comments of a fluff article about women with depression: “the sadness that runs under the skin of things, like blood, beginning as a trickle and ending up as a haemorrhage, staining everything.” Wow. (The last paragraph of the otherwise meh article also hit home too.)

3. The 18 newly-filled plant pots can fit perfectly arranged 3×6 on the tray for carrying, and as equally perfectly 2×9 on the water-catching tray in the porch. Deliciously neat.

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1. 3BT – back to brown, shyness is nice, static
2. 3BT – whoosh, wood and weird
3. 3BT – t-shirt weather, beg you hear our play, pink again

1. In the forest of birch, oak and rocks, the trees are evenly spaced without crowding or saplings in between. The weighty trunks grow tall and true but their still-naked limbs twist and gnarl. Underfoot is still golden from last year’s leaf fall. In just a few weeks, this scene will be transformed.

2. There is a glade in the woods just off the path above the other path, which looks like it’s from Fable. Two rings of stone, probably a century old, adorned by just one young tree each in the centre – like unactivated cullis gates to other worlds. Nearby, a stream has cut its way under a stone ledge and a set of steps leads excitingly off into the distance.

3. The sides of the beck, from here to the canal and river at Apperley Bridge, are covered with glorious green wild garlic (Ramsoms). The smell is divine. I collect a handful of leaves for my lunch.

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1. 3BT – sounds, Boron’s outside time, by the beck
2. 3BT – dogdamn soft, like a free charity shop, chatter
3. 3BT – reward + walk = rewalk, can’t wait, so soft

2. I learn about herbs from one book and wild foods from the other. I can’t wait for Spring to kick in.

3. The new brushed cotton sheet is taut and heavenly.

Related posts:

1. 3BT – next year, jokes, chilled
2. 3BT – planning, unnatural love, last snowy walk
3. 3BT – waking, bacon, quality