芒种 mángzhòng / 芒種 bōshu / 망종 mangjong
榴月初十 / tenth day of the pomegranate month

I woke up to a room filled with pink light. Checked the time - 4:38 a.m. - so I went back to bed.

芒种 mángzhòng / 芒種 bōshu / 망종 mangjong
榴月初九 / ninth day of the pomegranate month

Pleasurable things.

Waking up, drinking a mug of hot water in bed before properly getting up.

Softly-cooked eggs (with rocket and tarragon) for the first meal.

Working on the plot on my knees, feeling the sun on my back and neck.

Back inside feeling soft and warm from sun and labour. Eating something sweet - Fern Verrow's honeycomb on Carr's Table Water - for an instant lift.

Arranging leaves for the loo.

Eating rice (with chicken, asparagus, broad bean, pea shoot and leek).

Drinking tea and picking petals off drying roses. Catching boiling water at the right stage of bubbling. Practising sucking in the air with sips of tea so as to better taste it. Smelling the core of the roses when all the petals have been plucked. Feeling (?) the residual sweetness in the mouth after many cups of good tea.

Sitting in hot water.

Getting in bed before it is fully dark. Feels almost indecent for a city-dweller but the days are getting longer and longer and then they will turn.

芒种 mángzhòng / 芒種 bōshu / 망종 mangjong
榴月初九 / ninth day of the pomegranate month

Some of the buds saved from last week's bunch of peonies have bloomed after a bit of persuasion.

They are quite hard to let go of.

芒种 mángzhòng / 芒種 bōshu / 망종 mangjong
榴月初八 / eighth day of the pomegranate month

This evening I found myself in the Philosophy section of Waterstone's at Piccadilly. I had somehow forgotten my no-book-buying-so-no-bookshops-until-all-the-books-at-home-are-read rule.

I was seeking a replacement for my copy of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary that has ended up on permanent loan to someone. There were two options available: a translation by John Fletcher and one by Theodore Besterman. I was leaning towards Besterman's as I had read and liked his work but Miracles and Idolatry, part of the Penguin's Great Ideas in pocket-sized books series, is a condensed edition of Dictionnaire Philosophique, a "best of"'selection of essays I imagine. I thought I'll give Fletcher's A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary a go as it is a fuller book and I like his notes on his translation tone but the cover unsettles me. I could not do it.

I asked a staff for his opinion on the translations. He was assuring: they're probably as good as one another since the study of Voltaire is well-established. I agreed but left, leaving both books behind, feeling not quite satisfied.

While walking away from the bookshop, I thought, what if there was a shop that sold the definitive versions of things: the most faithful English translation of Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique (with sympathetic cover art), the most spirited recording of Mozart's String Quintet, the most protective hand-knitted Aran fisherman's jumper in the correct weight of wool, the most savoury biluochun green tea picked on the best day of the year for fine, tender buds and leaves, the most vanilla of vanilla ice-cream......

Ignoring the practical concerns for now, I considered the feasibility of such a proposition then realised its principle is so flawed it is doomed to fail. Why would you want to go into a shop that you can trust so much that you may buy, without any need for questioning, what is picked for you? For any shopper with particularities, the fun is in the looking because the prize may be sweet but the thrill of the chase is sweeter.

芒种 mángzhòng / 芒種 bōshu / 망종 mangjong
榴月初八 / eighth day of the pomegranate month

At Monocle's country fayre, I took a rain-break on a chair under an umbrella, ate a cardamom bun and watched people have a go on this fairground attraction.

A Stetson-wearing man swung the sledgehammer with one arm to hit the lever that raised the puck to above 100 and the bell was rung. He was nonchalant and his Stetson did not appear to have shifted an inch. I was impressed.

I was also relieved. So my primordial feminine instincts are not impaired! In the past couple of years, I have been plagued by self-doubt because I just cannot get the appeal of Ryan Gosling. Yes, i watched Drive. No, I still don't care. Every woman I have had a discussion with on this matter cannot believe my indifference. I have been called "crazy", told that there is "something wrong" with me and I should "sort it out".

But today, through a display on this primitive determinator of social order by brute strength, I received a sign that maybe I am OK. The hat-wearing is key.