A year has gone past since last Friday

Where to start:

A poem put up on a closed group, hell's bells, do I want to risk that being published?

Cuddling a baby and seeing her intellectual processes

Chatting and laughing in 2 cafes

Fire, welcoming people, knocks and bangs on our front and back door, cards everywhere

No more anxiety about Arabic homework

Builders, bricks, diggers, lorries, little cafe with their own kettle beside the garage

Fixing for the archaeologists to come along asap

Poetry in Oxford, meeting Stephen Watts, asking Adnan Al-Sadegh my 2 best questions

Sitting in the Green room at the Pegasus, reading Arabic with someone who did 2 years at SOAS

Waiting for my 11pm impulse buys from Amazon to be delivered, book heaven

Hearing 'Happy Birthday' played for me by the busker in Wallingford, a work colleague arranged that

Calls with my parents and brother from Scotland, in between their life of parties and walks up hills

Booking a June weekend at Lower Shaw Farm and poetry events in Swindon in May

B is for Birthday

My son H doesn't like his biological birthday, so a couple of years ago he appointed 12th October as his official birthday. This took some getting used to. I was worried that come his bio birthday he would be unhappy at not getting a present from me. Anyway we managed to divide up into the people who agreed to go along with it and those like me who preferred to give a present on the anniversary of his birth.

This time I was more content with the idea and while he was asleep went into his room to attach a big Happy Birthday banner right across the walls. I made a little heap of presents and cards too.

When I woke him in the morning he smiled the largest smile ever, a wonderful beam of joy and surprise on seeing the banner.