I’m reeling heady from books and Parisian dreams tonight. Words. Their silky smoothness in the air and their shoulder-to-shoulder snugness on my bookshelf. Things are good tonight; I’m drinking tea and missing my family quietly, not intrusively, amid the whirr of the computer and the smell of laundry.

A conversation over tea and hot chocolate at the new Café Nero this afternoon, after an hour running fingers over spines on black shelves, has me thinking about possibilities and Apica notebooks. I want to travel the world with a bundle of blue and cream Apica notebooks, slotted cosily in a canvas bag (sandals hooked on finger, toes in sand, or perhaps the bag on the floor of Café Madeleine in Jackson Square). They need a thick but fast-drying ink pen, the kind we were made to use at school. I remember cartridges bursting in my rucksack and being taught to write an ‘f’ in two thin, fat bubbles.

There is a ritual to making tea. A dry spoon dipped into the cream pot of sugar – that wonderful noiseless sifting of white grains as they tumble over one another – and dropped from a certain height (not too high, or it splashes the tea, not too low, or the heat from the mug clings sugar to the metal) into Lori’s English Breakfast, before a quick thermometer shake and a dip in my Earl Grey. Stir, lift, deposit, stir, lift, deposit. Is it selfish of me to not want a drop of sweetness in my tea but to contaminate Lori’s English Breakfast with my Earl Grey? I try to analyse this in the same way I do when staring at two plates of food, freshly prepared, ready to place on the round mats on the round table. Giving thought to which one goes where is complex. Lori will reach for the smaller portion automatically. For me, there is a period of deliberation before handing her the larger portion. What does this say about me? The result is the same, but her altruism is automatic and mine is paused. Perhaps I remember days of fighting for the bigger slice with David when I was little or wrestling spoons over the scrapings of cake mix in the bowl (smell of sponge in the kitchen, my mother’s pre-bake charm, ‘Good Luck, Cake!’ shouted into the oven, a ridiculous practice still I cling to).

Speaking of Daviday, he signed for his first apartment today. I called Dad to get his parsnip recipe – he was in the middle of cooking Spaghetti Bolognese and singing that ridiculous song he made up when we were children (I suppose, if I’m honest, I tend to copy that one too – my parents’ cooking rituals are embedded deep). Recipe received, I was passed to Mum, who told me about Dave’s new flat. He gets the keys at the end of this month. It’s a tiny furnished one-bedroom place in a village called Whitney just outside Oxford, not far from the flight school. I was shocked to hear it costs pretty much the same per month as Lori and I pay together for this place. He will be excited to move in, but I wonder what he and Liz will do with her still at school in Devizes, studying for A-Levels, and him flying high in Oxford with only Sundays free. I’ll sidetrack the fact that my little brother is in a long-term relationship while I am still pitifully free and single. I’d like to say that is a choice I have made. It is, but it would be nice if I had opportunities to exercise that choice more often!

Grapefruit for breakfast this morning, an attempt at healthy eating ruined quickly with a piece of toast to calm the bitterness. Church, then home for lunch, lazy watching of American Idol on TV, and a trip out to Waterstone’s and Café Nero before coming home to do some work and cook. I made a mini boneless leg of lamb, roasties, parsnips (which didn’t turn out as good as Dad’s), roasted carrots with coriander and Yorkshire puddings, which don’t really go with lamb but satisfied an acute craving. On the phone to Dad I mixed up my words and told him we had a “legless lamb” (I meant a boneless leg), which elicited much laughter and jokes about drunk sheep. Mum is coming to see me on Friday – girly shopping is proposed. I might take her to Dart’s Farm.

Gazing out the upstairs window of the café today, I watched a bright blue balloon with a curly tail and ‘Café Nero’ written across the belly in black bob up and into the air. It must have made its way out of the door downstairs. It rose jerkily, a stream of blue against murky grey and white, and then, after it had disappeared from view, I watched its shadow chase it up the contours of the building opposite, morphing in shape with each window and crevice.