Husband is away, so I’ve had some great nights in at home. I have been surrounded by:
Hand, foot, cuticle and nail potions
All the remote controls and phones in the house (some now with very supple heels and strong nails…)
Endless singing and talent TV shows
A selection of remaining Easter chocolate and party bag sweets
All the cushions.
I’m not really alone as the kids are asleep upstairs.
I love going to tuck the kids in before I go to bed. I re-arrange their duvets over disordered limbs and dense breathing. They smell clean.
They’re still and complete and quietly humming with life. Like small people-shaped batteries, furiously recharging themselves on dreams of zombies, rainbow flowers, vanilla fudge and high-speed trains.
Or maybe that’s what I’ll be dreaming of, after a little too much chocolate and cuticle conditioner.
Last night I heard a bus shelter singing. I was sitting alone, watching the lights of a basketball court flicker on and off, waiting for the promised number 46. There was a gentle “Ah – oooo. Ah.” Like Ladysmith Black Mambazo (circa 1986) under a large bucket. It was a calming, meditative repetition of those 3 notes.
This bus stop whale song was magical, until I realised it was coming from the shelter’s brightly lit advertising sign. Each time it scrolled to a new ad for highly engineered underwear or lifestyle drinks, a distant South African choir sang sadly: “Ah – oooo. Ah.”
Colour starvation
In these drippy flannel grey spring days, I love colour. My eyes are hungry for bright shiny colourful things. Like these…
Resin chopsticks against a sad grey sky.
I’ve never used these as chopsticks. Far too chunky and clunky, and slightly bent from the move to the UK. But beautiful to look at. [Dinosaur Designs resin.]
Happy patterns and colours
Well, look what happens when I shop for clothes on a dull flat day… [Very creased Josh Goot and some faux-Missoni.]
Wizard of Oz felt rainbow
Look how utterly terrifying that faceless flying monkey thing is.
The magic carpet
This is a magic carpet and a prayer mat. That’s the kind of school we go to here.
And here’s one I wrote earlier…
Pretty things offscreen. The more of my time that is sucked up by websites, email, television and mobile phones, the more I appreciate solid physical beauty. Here are some pictures of pretty things I have seen offscreen…
Wandering in the www garden. I tend to lose all concept of time as soon as I open up a web browser. I start with a task (e.g. look up a train timetable), then somehow find myself 1 hour later looking at pictures of husband and wife cutlery.
