I've been planting snow peas

and picking tomatoes.

I've been lying in the sun with the butterfly who hatched today.

They don't seem to mind being close to me. Dean wonders if it's because they've been listening to our voices while they've been in their cocoons. (We have them inside while they're in the chrysalis stage.)

And I've been admiring the twigs and pods my four year old niece collected for me. My parents have a walnut orchard, and I've been helping them pick the walnuts up which is a mammoth job when there are 12 acres of them. One night when I limped to the car in the dark, stiff from hours in the orchard, I spotted these twigs on the bonnet of my car and laughed. I knew it would be Olivia who put them there. And what I love so much about this, is that she remembered which were my favourite twigs without being told, and gathered them for me. She is the child who turns up with a dead butterfly in her outstretched hand to show me, the one who says, "We must be kind to little creatures," the one who lies on the floor under a chair for many minutes, inspecting a ladybird who has crept into my house. I hope she keeps the wonder.