Time to sweep up the days past, hold the children's notes and jottings, the hastily drawn pictures of unicorns, and pause; a moment to wonder about the years, before carefully tucking those child-drawn treasures away to books and cupboards.
The paper secrets I'll file in the day book for August, which will, as the days tick by, become another memory book for another month. I know that in just hours ahead, I'll heave a big sigh, create the empty pages for the day book of September, and look forward once more to plans and big ideas.
Then, as I search and sift through all the badly printed photos, the ephemera, torn theatre tickets, notes from workshops, flyers picked up in holidays and travel across the counties, looking for the last items to save before I throw all to the recycling bag, a photo that Dig has taken crosses my paper pile.
I stop there and would laugh about our departing bouncing bottoms, me and Squirrel, or flatter myself that of all the skirts I have, this careful cut cotton wraps my shape better than any other.
Yet it's not these observations that cause me to tuck this photo especially safe, bound in the cover of my August diary. It's the way we are, mother and daughter, both gently strolling towards a town, any town, one person larger, one smaller, but so easily, made of the same, simply separated by years.
