froth

I love taking photos of my baking, 

especially when it looks so filthy. 

I dropped my children at their tennis club this evening, just as Venus was knocked out of the second round of Wimbledon. I am going to be there on Saturday, for the ladies final, so a conversation naturally flowed between me and another mum who I don't know .. and who doesn't know me.

"Daddy is looking after me" says my youngest.

"ooh, a girl's day out?" she asks brightly.

"No" says my eldest child.

"No" I say blithely "my husband is doing childcare and my boyfriend is taking me to Wimbledon"

fireworks

I had a sweet moment yesterday afternoon, lying on my bed in the sunshine. Safe behind my eyelids i could watch the flashing colours as the bright light strobed behind the briskly waving treetops outside my window, a silent fanfare to the rolling climax at my fingertips. A stolen pause in a busy week.

revenge note

I don't know how the conversation started, but it took place while we eat scrambled eggs in the early afternoon, a substitute breakfast.

"If someone hurt you" he said, "I would kill them."

He is the most gentle and caring person i know, and i can't ask him to bruise me as i like to be bruised but  there is an undercurrent of a different sort of passion.

protection

He teases me about my sharply pressed tea towels and smooth linen sheets, but he makes the effort himself when I go and stay. Bolts of ivory and cream in a neat tower on the end of the bed, ready for spreading.

"I'll help you make the bed" I offer, but I find it is me that is spread, black lace peeled off and pressed to the mattress.

Afterwards we lie gasping for air, crossways across the bed, crumpled ruined linen beneath us, smug at the urgency (twice). His free hand taps the cover that we're lying on.

"We are not totally slutty" he says reassuringly, "at least it's a John Lewis mattress protector"

live it

I had this sweet little conversation with my mother last week. We were discussing serious stuff; wills and death and where the secrets are buried etc., and it was all getting a little dreary so we attempted to lift the mood with silly jokes about living side by side in matching rose-covered cottages once my children have moved out and dad had shuffled off (yes, very cheery shit).

"We'll have a breezeway .." I say (i'm reading too many american novels at the moment).

".. with a connecting gate" Mum agrees.

"And a secret door, so we don't have to use the front door like everyone else ..."

".. a secret knock" Mum insists.

"to check whether we are alone?" I suggest, amused.

".. you or me?" Mum giggles wickedly.

So THERE is where i get it from.

walk the plank

We are in bed, talking about my CV.

".. Lusty girl, likes to be put across her boyfriend's knee and paddled with a barbecue plank" he rattles off casually.

"Ssh" I say "that's our little secret."