Joy

Look at this. It's rather beautiful, don't you think? It's a Sainsbury's value strawberry. Not good enough for their normal packs but okay for people, like me, who resents paying full price for anything and isn't fussed about fruit abnormalities.

Tuesdays. I read a really lovely piece by Ian Martin in the Guardian today, about his thoughts on turning 60. It included a wonderful tale about when he was hitching home with a friend as a teen and a young couple picked them up in their car. They were treated like equals, laughed, smoked their cigarettes and sang along to a songs on the radio. That joy in youth and the first excitement of becoming an adult and independence and fun. I remember it so clearly. I always think of the David Bowie lyric:

And if the homework brings you down
Then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown

Ian Martin said he thought about that experience, which only lasted about 10 minutes, every day since. He said the couple were a "Belisha Beacon of kindness pulsing through the murk of a whole life". Makes me want to leap about.