No politics this week, by inclination rather than instruction. Better to relive those insignificant moments that, often surprisingly, give such joy. And this week has been full of them. For a start Rosie and I had another week of Sophie and Bay enriching our lockdown. It’s remarkable how one small four and three quarters year old (very important to her, those three quarters) can transform the mood of the house, not to mention the orderliness of it. Constant chatter, perpetual clutter. But no matter, what enchantment.
Tucked up in the attic (well, it’s not really an attic, more a cupboard alongside the bathroom but you know what I mean) was an old leather case full of kids clothes that Rosie had made for Sophie. Bay, a fashionista even at her age, dived into them, found to her delight a smock dress that Sophie had worn forty years earlier and tried it on. A trawl through the old albums revealed Sophie at the same age:
Then there was the full moon, a Strawberry Moon apparently, the last full moon of Spring. It didn’t look like a strawberry, nor that colourful, but it could have been the clouds I suppose. It certainly cast an impressive light.
But the very next day I discovered our first ever orchid in the paddock, a pink Pyramidal Orchid. Fanciful to think it had anything to do with the moon but who knows…it came from somewhere so why not.
And the day after that, we found glow-worms. Not one but two, both females, both hoping for suitable males to arrive. Like everything this year, they’re weeks ahead of schedule, so while waiting for their partners to appear they’ll seek out local slugs and snails, inject them with toxic protein, joyride on their backs and wait for them to die. Then eat them. Then glow. Satiety for them, delight for us.
And finally, what a year for the garden’s roses. Until the wind blew and the rain fell, that is. But up till then, what with Sophie, Bay and everything else, pure heaven. Next week, back to Boris (maybe).
