Mr CC has been away with work this week, so it's been a bit of a strange one. I think the last time that we were apart for longer than a night or two was when he did his training to become a firefighter, so it's not something we're particularly used to. But it has meant that I've spent some quality time with Bella in the evenings, particularly on Tuesday when we ventured across the fields (with no coat on!) to enjoy the last flickers of the day's sunshine. Work has been incredibly busy this week, and I have felt very grateful to be able to escape for a while after being huddled indoors for so long.

As the days slip away and we fall ever deeper into spring, it's this call of nature that I'm trying to embrace the most, before another season is done and gone. The creamy daffodils in the corner of our garden are blooming now, and they bob and dance in the early evening breeze when I return from work; a welcoming and cheerful sight. In the hazy light of the dawn it is the sound of the birds' chorus that dominates, beginning softly and crescendoing as the white streaks of light filter across the bed sheets.

I've been wearing an unbuttoned coat to work - even on the morning where frost pricked the grassy hillsides and nipped the air - relishing the cool freshness of morning that a clear blue sky the day before brings.  The wind might be whipping around the hedges and whistling through the cracks in the windows, but it's also the instigator of swirling spirals of blossom petals that seem to almost shimmer in an iridescent light.

Sometimes, in the quiet weeks, I wonder if I have any memories to share, but then I realise that it's often the simple moments plucked from a seemingly ordinary day that are the ones I want to remember the most.