In one point in his book 'A Year With Swollen Appendices' Brian Eno defines culture as all the things that we do that we don't have to. (I think he also defined art in the same way in his recent - and apparently poorly received - lecture.) And whether or not Brian is right, I do think that often it's the things we don't have to do that make a difference when they're done. 

The Minx and I had friends over for dinner this evening and she arrived at the cottage with some flowers that the florist in Chorley had put out for a pound a bunch: they only had a day or so left in them, I guess. Then she did me the great kindness of clearing out the fridge. More specifically, she cleared out a load of jars, whose contents were rightly consigned to the bin, and then washed up the jars and took off the labels before decorating them with string and filling them with flowers. They made the table and the room look beautiful. It's something I would never have thought to do.

As the kids were eating with us, too, I needed to extend the table, which the Minx suggested rotating round so it took up the length of the room. Despite having been in the cottage for two years now, this had never occurred to me but it worked perfectly. The combination of this minor rearrangement along with the flowers transformed the room and it all made for a wonderful evening.