The Less Perfect Ones

The morning started damp and stayed that way, the kind of grey that never commits to rain, and I did the laundry anyway because the line under the eaves stays dry enough if the wind is doing anything at all. It was — a light, steady sort of breeze, the good kind — and I stood at the window with my coffee watching the sheets breathe in and out on the line. There’s a particular sound linen makes when it shifts, a soft flap and then nothing, then the flap again. I left the second load in the basket longer than I meant to, so it came out of the machine smelling faintly of waiting. Not a disaster. Just a reminder that the line wants things promptly.

At the market I spent a ridiculous amount of time at the olive stall comparing two crates of the same olives. One was glossy and uniform, all the same size, the sort that photographs well. The other was smaller, a bit bruised, a few stems mixed in. I took the second one, and the man selling them looked at me like I’d done something sensible, which I had. The perfect-looking ones are grown to look perfect and often taste of nothing. The ugly ones are the ones that were left alone and got bitter and sweet on their own schedule. He told me they were for preserving rather than eating straight off the tree, which I knew, but it’s nice to be told things. I’ve got them soaking now, changing the water every day, and in a fortnight I’ll brine them with a little fennel and orange peel.

While I was at it I pulled the string of peppers off the door to see how they were doing, and they’re holding up — dry, no soft spots, exactly what I wanted. The other useful thing this week has been a small habit I’ve been trying to make stick: I’ve been bad at knots for years, properly bad, and it costs me every time I tie something to the roof rack or lash the bin lid. So I’ve been practicing the one knot that does most of the work — a bowline, the one that won’t slip and won’t jam, a loop that holds. Twenty times a day for a week and my hands are starting to know it without my thinking about it. A modest skill, nothing impressive, but the sort of thing that makes the difference between a day that goes smoothly and one where you’re standing in the rain fighting a piece of rope.

The olives are in their bowl on the counter, the sheets are in, and the house smells of clean cotton and damp stone. I’m going to sit down and do absolutely nothing useful for the rest of the evening, which is also a skill worth practicing.