Small Pleasures by Priscilla Brown

 

 

Struggling with a tricky assignment on an island inhabited only by her employer and a hundred sheep, journalist Jasmine's almost literal lifeline is the sexy ferry deckhand. 

https://books2read.com/Dancing-the-Reel

 

 

My desk is in a corner of the room, with a window on each wall. One looks over the back garden, the other towards the front garden with a large veronica (hebe) bush growing against the window. I should prune this shrub but am reluctant to do so as it is a favourite bee cafe. I can be distracted from my work by the bees feeding on the purple flowers, moving from one flower to another as if each may carry a different taste or scent or appearance or whatever it is bees judge flowers by. For me, this is a regular small pleasure. I thought about other small pleasures I take for granted in my daily life, and consider myself lucky.

 

In my contemporary romance fiction writing, I take pleasure in finding the precise word or phrase to evoke for readers the information or emotion or mind picture that I plan and plot for their enjoyment, and to move the story along. Often this requires several drafts, use of the thesaurus and/or other reference books. I find if I leave the work for a few days, on return the crucial word/s become clear. Professional satisfaction, yes, and much pleasure - if I didn't get pleasure from it, I wouldn't do it.

Crimson rosellas (medium-sized parrots) frequent my garden. It always surprises me that it takes them only a few minutes after I've refilled their seed dish to fly in from wherever they were spending their day; watching them quibble for space on it is a pleasurable time-waster. Walking to the shops, I pause at the creek with its chorus of unseen frogs, vociferous after recent rain swelled their habitat.

I watch traffic on a busy road halt to wait for a duck family to cross, mum leading, eight ducklings, dad in the rear.  At this point, there is a road sign depicting ducks crossing, as if for some duckish reason this is a duck highway from the aforementioned creek to the sports field opposite. My pleasure comes not only from the ducks but also from the consideration shown by the drivers paying them attention. Then at the shopping centre, strangers smile at each other while waiting for the lift - a small pleasure helping along a busy day.

I'm not a good cook, and my cakes can suffer the sinking centre syndrome; overcoming the challenge of this heightens pleasure in the final eating. Add to this the aroma of freshly ground coffee, especially when I haven't done it myself! Which is now, so I sign off on wishing that 2021 may bring you many pleasures.

Stay safe. Priscilla.

https://bwlpublishing.ca

 

https://priscillabrownauthor.com