everything about them. from the way they lay as long, beckoning fingers in the cut-strip, plastic green of the marketplace 'grass' ... to the lightness of opening them. hardly a press. an apologetic touch will do and the small pebbles are released - pebbles or? minute, rediscovered dinosaur eggs, hidden for an age.
my weeks are often coloured, intentionally or not. some weeks simply demand yellows. some are composed of the shades of nature only - muted browns and greys, a kind of dampening of all human follies, a return to the weight and comfort of the most base hues, put together in bowls or scattered on shelves. some weeks are coloured by a random find in an old junk shop or a gift which comes in the front door. and sometimes, these guests seem to arrive altogether in a week and take over the scheme completely. last week, blue came to stay.
it's been raining for 10 days and 10 nights and the streets are topsy turvy. new colonies are moving in on the bottoms of the neighbourhood fences. my washing is three baskets deep. but the grasses are green again.