I need to read more books. The pleasure of physical paper, pages and the smell of print is amazing and something I often forget in my Love affair with The Internet.

Last night I read most of Nicholson Baker’s A Box of Matches. In it, he talks in a soothingly repetitive way about the ritual of lighting the morning fire, the pleasure of rising in the dark, the trials of the family pets (1 duck, 1 cat) and ruminations on washing up and making coffee. It is just my kind of book and has already included several incredible passages dealing with the dishwasher, and some burnt scum in the bottom of a pan.

There was also a phrase that struck me as being really true and relevant, and this morning, I adhered to it’s wisdom:

What you do first thing can influence your whole day. If the first thing you do is stump to the computer in your pyjamas to check your e-mail, blinking and plucking your proverbs, you’re going to be in a hungry electronic funk all morning. So don’t do it.

I had a shower, put on make-up, (?!) got dressed up in my most colourful ensemble, put a loaf of bread on the radiator to prove, bought the necessary supplies for tomorrow’s pie-baking, and got some moth beans on the boil.

A good, physical start to things…

I noticed many sounds today.

The soft, sucking sound of bread dough as it is worked against the glass sides of a bowl.

The drone of traffic through double-glazed windows.

The heavy rolling boil of moth beans in the saucepan.

The tickety tickety typing of my fingers on the keyboard.

The splatter of water on the shower base.

The clang of the frying pan as I set it down on the hob.

The slushy sound when you wash out a bowl you’ve made bread in.

The rasp of a bread knife against the crust of a freshly baked loaf.

The squeak of the floorboard near my bed.