Sunday journalling prompt

On little pleasures

Hello,

On Friday night, I was catching a train back home, winding through the fenland of East Anglia as the sun set red. I was tired, but content. I love a long train journey. For a couple of hours, nobody can expect anything of me. (About six months ago, I removed the email app from my phone, and I commend it to you all.) It’s bliss.

I’d brought two books with me but I read both of them on the outward journey. So instead, I was indulging in an annual pleasure, watching the footage of Chelsea Flower Show on my tiny screen. I find Chelsea ridiculous, but also glorious. I don’t watch it for the celebrities and overt displays of wealth. I watch it for the stream of scruffy, obsessive gardeners who try to explain why they’ve devoted their lives to raising perfect specimens of one very specific type of plant, or who have tried to recreate the taste of cherryade in the form of a garden. Of course, no real explanation is possible. We are driven to do these things, and it’s life-giving to witness it.

I also watch Chelsea for presenter Monty Don, who I’m convinced should be the BBC’s first choice of broadcaster come the apocalypse. I could happily ride out the End Times watching Monty potter around his garden talking to his labradors and quietly urging me to dead-head my peonies this week.

All of which got me thinking about this week’s journalling prompt. It’s a nice, gentle one, designed to raise a little happiness.