The week that was

Here are some nice things that have happened to me this week.

Oliver coming rushing down the stairs to say thank you for the flowers in his bedroom because they looked pretty and smelled nice and made him feel happy.

One of the taxi drivers coming back after a month in India, sleek and tanned and bright-eyed and full of stories. A lovely evening of all of us forgetting to be chilly and grumpy, and being entranced by exotic descriptions of an adventure a world away.

The man in the fish and chip shop doing a little dance all by himself with the mop and bucket when the shop was empty.

Lucy singing in the shower.

Two middle-aged, stout, plain looking ladies walking past the taxi smiling enormous happy smiles and holding hands.

A sad man who had left his girlfriend in the pub alone on Valentine’s Day after an argument that he wished they hadn’t had getting the taxi to turn round and take him back again so he could try and sort it out.

Mark and Lucy puzzling and confused together over Lucy’s physics prep until they finally worked it out.

Sunshine and daffodils.

A sunset over the lake so completely astonishing that I stopped the taxi: and sat with the customers for a few minutes,  just looking and looking.

Walking down the alley at the back of the house after work, with the dog in the starlight, looking up to see a friendly column of woodsmoke rising steadily from our chimney into the night sky.

Having enough money to pay the mortgage after all.

Mark washing my taxi for me yesterday morning whilst I wrote this.

All of our boots and shoes tumbled together in a homely jumble on the doormat.

The four of us in the sunshine at the pavement cafe in Windermere, eating enormous pizzas and drinking wine (and apple juice and coke) and all talking over each other all at once and telling stories and laughing and Oliver pulling faces: and the friendly French couple at the next table asking Mark to take photographs of them with their camera.

Mark took the photographs. We didn’t edit them, it really looked like that. He has gone back to Aberdeen now. We were all sad to say goodbye to each other. But it’s not long until Friday.