Enough

However delicious the white chocolate cookies, there comes a time to stop.

after thirst

big gulps of sharp icy lemonade

reading on a bench, the world opens up

so much bright grass, so much luminous sky

settling in

the cat cries until 3.15 am

Meeting

A robin alights on the fence just here before skipping off into the hedge.

returning to pick up mail

there are always the potatoes, waiting patiently out there for my fork to show them the light

temporary home

the cats pace the new rooms like men waiting to become fathers

empty rooms

the huge blaring de-humidifiers dry our throats

how it is for now

hotel breakfast, rain, hotel lunch, rain, hotel dinner, rain

this day is missing

if found please return to owner, reward offered

Drying out

The cats jump off the sofa and squelch across the carpet to come and spend time with me outside. Silver lies on the gravel in the sun and rolls over and over.

No problem

Yesterday I waded through shin-high water in my living room. Today I eat aubergine wrapped around mozarella in a warm and dry hotel restaurant. Tomorrow we start mopping sewage from the kitchen floor.

More rain

The lip of the thatch creates a heavy curtain of glittering beads outside my office window. Behind the water, the lanky cornflowers are beaten down by the weather. The blossoms have lost none of their brilliant blue.

master

her face exudes joy as a buttercup reflects a pool of yellow sunshine under your chin

Hunger

An absence, calling out

Even here

A clutch of miniature dandelions hugging a wall, each ragged flower-head sketched in with the edge of a highlighter pen. Tall stalks ending in saucers of milk-coloured blooms on the roundabout. Beside the motorway, a series of brush-strokes of heavenly azure blue.

hello caterpillar

a baby's finger wearing a bumblebee's coat

Shhhhh

The constant strained wheezing of the air conditioning. A muted tock-tock-tock from the corner. A distant car, leaving. The wind through the leaves outside. The settling of dust.

Erin's drawing

Seven pink-glitter-pen piled up smiley faces.

Disturbed while meditating again

He bursts through the catflap and moves through the house, calling out with increasing urgency. I answer, and he clipclops up the stairs and licks my hand before curling into a knot behind me. When I'm not here, how long does he call before he admits he's alone?

Don't look too hard

My eyes stop swivelling and come to rest on a mound of lobelia, fizzing over with modest snow-white blossoms.

Keep your eyes open

A plume of white smoke rises high into the blue, fading to nothing in less than a second.

Brambles

The brambles are taking over, promising sweet juicy blackberries in return for their domination.

Stop

The woman inside the car with cropped blond hair has asked a seven year old with braided hair (her niece? her daughter?) to help her parallel park between two cars on the side of the road. The girl stands on the pavement, beckoning the woman on, and then holds up her hands to stop her when the bumpers gets close. The woman keeps on reversing, and the girl's gestures get larger and more urgent and her face draws back into shock. The cars hit, the girl is incredulous, betrayed.

An afternoon in the garden

There are four bottom-halves of field-mice on the front lawn - Fatty's developed a taste for heads. The first red potatoes rise with the fork, two of them speared through. I plant sky-blue campanula, and cosmos with papery white petals. The young woodpecker with a bright red cap pecks at the peanuts I bought online. I plant spinach, guessing the slugs will eat it before I have a chance. Tea. Novel. Earth behind my fingernails. Clouds. An ordinary afternoon.

Cake stall, Earley Fun Day

She apologises for the chocolate krispie cakes - they've melted in the sun. They still taste good, she says, but they fall apart.

Fieldmouse

He looks intact but his fur isn't rippling; there's a trickle of blood from his ear.

blackcurrants

need more sugar

Tangled lives

7 words can change everything.

Lunch

Fried courgettes, picked from the garden yesterday.

Conversation

A mother and her baby stand by the river and have a long conversation about the ducks. It doesn't matter that her baby doesn't know any words yet.

From across the marshes

High-rise windows glitter magnificently from across the marshes. Behind each diamond, one or more of us are living out their lives.