A Gravel Track

The sound of car tyres crunching over gravel seems to be a sound I find exciting. This is a funny monkey for me because I’m not sure what the association is exactly. I remember a feeling, but it’s not a memory as such.

The sound is distinct, a heavy crumbling, like an amplified version of a rolling pin over biscuits, or something too big and too hard to be vacuumed crunching through the pipes of a Hoover. What I feel is a sense of anticipation or excitement – like a holiday’s approaching or someone I’m excited to see is about to walk through the door. It might be a holiday that I’m remembering, or perhaps it’s the sound my grandparents’ drive made as our car rumbled up to the house, the anticipation of how exciting visiting them always was entwining itself with the sound.

Monkey by Clive Wesley Dennis 

Stocked Up.

There’s a peculiar instinct I have to be prepared for a siege, which I think is where this monkey comes from (I wrote about this is my Living Room once).

After the big monthly shop’s been unloaded and stored away, I tend to punctuate the rest of the day with trips to the fridge, just to admire the well-stocked shelves. It brings with it a sense of safety – like, no matter what happens, at least we have plenty of food.

Perhaps it’s also the possibility – all the things we could cook compared with the muddling together of unlikely ingredients that tends to happen at the end of the month. I like to open the fridge door and think, “We can eat whatever we fancy tonight.”

It’s a satisfying sight, those shelves bursting with colour – greens, reds, yellows;  glimpses of leaves through cellophane bags and berries in plastic punnets; piles of cheese and clusters of yogurt pots; and usually – because I’ve just been paid – some kind of special treat. 

Image by Tony Pickering (@mrpickers)

Baking Potatoes

The smell of baking potatoes is one of the nicest things to come home to. It smells of warmth and comfort and safety. Like most of my favourite smells, I have memories hung on this one, which amplify my enjoyment of it.

 The smell of jacket potatoes reminds me of being a very little girl. My mum would leave potatoes in the oven to bake while we were shopping in town; when we got home, lunch would be ready. I don’t remember much about eating the potatoes, but I remember that smell, the comfort of it when I was tired and cold, the way it rushed out at us like an excitable puppy as soon as we opened the front door.

The anticipation of the crispy skin and a hot, crumbly centre oozing with melted butter just about tops the eating. But the smell, the anticipation, that’s all part of it. And that’s there, even now, whenever I bake a potato.

Monkey by Kieran Hazell (www.ownbeat.co.uk)

Two White Bottles

This is a pleasure I haven’t had since childhood, but during a week of trialling the local milkman, I’m really enjoying the simple pleasure of opening the front door when the air is still damp and the grass dewy, to collect two cold glass bottles from the porch. I love the way the bottles haven’t changed since I was a child: squat chunky pints with shining foil tops.

Every morning is like going back in time. I love the whole procedure: opening the door to see them there on the porch, two small white guards; bringing them inside, cold against my skin; pushing down the cap and pouring that first inch away from the top of the bottle, the satisfying glug. My favourite part, though, is the first: the tiny excitement of seeing two full white bottles on the porch, a call back to years long gone. 

Monkey by Clive Wesley Dennis 

Pitter Patter

As long as I don’t have to go anywhere, I love the rain. Especially from the vantage point of my living room, which has an usual amount of window in it. Sitting under the skylights, it feels like I’m in a tent – a dry, claustrophobia-free tent. The rain patters on the glass like rice scattered into a pan; I’m newly aware of how accurate those wooden rainmakers are. The puddles on the patio ripple and splash and the leaves drip, their greenness amplified. The birds are still singing, unperturbed, the melody behind the percussion rising and falling like the tide.

I have the fire on. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here, cocooned in the knowledge that I don’t have to leave the house until tomorrow. 

Monkey by Kieran Hazell (www.ownbeat.co.uk)