Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

Well, not quite, because the muntjac eat the roses. And Jemma the cat is seven years old. So here at the Hermitage, raindrops on leaves and whiskers on a seven-year old cat count as some of my favourite things. I don't have a bright copper kettle, let alone several, but a cafetiere full of strong coffee (I recommend Taylor's Hot Lava Java) makes the list, and thermatex-lined gloves do the trick for me in winter in place of warm woolen mittens. (With fingers that bear all the signs of impending arthritis - I blame it on writing in the days of pen and paper - I am also discovering the blessing of compression gloves, but they are a bit too mundane for this particular exercise, I feel.)

Where was I? Thermatex-lined gloves; oh, and brown paper packages tied up with string are increasingly trendy again these days, being relatively eco-friendly (apparently WH Smiths sold more brown paper last Christmas than traditional Christmas wrapping paper).

When I was 19 or 20, I and a friend from university went inter-railing round Europe (a rite of passage that may be trickier for young people in the future, sadly), and one of the places we visited was Salzburg. We stayed in a bed-and-breakfast one stop down the trainline from the city itself - living it up, you understand, after two weeks of youth hostels, and a hotel in a rather dodgy part of Paris! By way of evening entertainment, and for a small extra fee, the B&B offered guests the chance to watch The Sound of Music on video. It seemed the right, if cheesy, thing to do. And some parts of the sound track you never quite manage to forget: Do, Re, Me; Raindrops on Roses; Edelweiss; etcetera.

So as the raindrops clung onto the leaves in my garden, the song was playing unbidden in my mind. That then prompted me to hunt through my photo albums for the one full of pictures of that European trip. Well, I thought it was one album, but it turns out it was three, from those wonderful days when part of the pleasure of travel was coming home and getting camera films developed, and then carefully selecting which snaps would make it into the album. Part of one album is carefully marked up with notes of what each picture was of - randomly, the middle part of the trip, in Italy - but elsewhere there are no annotations. Even so, I recognised Salzburg, with its castle above the city, against a backdrop of snow-blanketed mountains.

Even at a distance of nearly 30 years, the photos brought back quite clear memories of much of the trip. And some places are definitely on my list of destinations to re-visit. In Venice, I remember deciding not to buy a glass horse, clear glass shot through with blue, because it seemed expensive and it might get broken in my big rucksack during the rest of the trip. I wish I'd taken the risk; since then, our family has had a saying about "No venetian glass horses", meaning, don't come back wishing you'd bought that one special thing. I don't think it actually cost a fortune, but just seemed bit pricey on a student travel budget. One day, one day, I'll head back to the Rialto Bridge and buy one. Now, that could take me off on another tangent, about the time when my mum and I tried to go on a day-trip to Venice, with my dad up front in the left seat when he was still an airline captain, but Venice was covered in fog and we had to divert, "enjoying" an airport meal at Rimini before flying straight back to Manchester, with Venice literally not even in sight... but let me not go too far down that track!

As I've said before, welcome to the contents of my head. A raindrop leads to a song, which leads to coffee and gloves, which leads to inter-railing photo albums, which leads to a glass horse and a flight diversion, and that would probably lead to tales of pre-9/11 when I used to ask to visit the flight deck whenever I flew anywhere, and let's go from there to my own dreams of flying, and why I once left MOD and went back again...when really all I intended to do at the outset of this was, peacefully and with gratitude, to focus on the extraordinary and simple beauty of a raindrop on a leaf. One channel of my mind seeks the peace of the moment, while squillionty-three others ping off in all sorts of different directions, criss-crossing, back-tracking, jumping off here and there, with my conscious mind trying to grab the ends of the threads and make sense of them, or else to ignore the tangled whole completely.

So, breathe. Raindrops. Favourite things. (Oh, did you ever realise that cats have eye-brow whiskers as well as nose whiskers?? And then there was that time when...)

Anyway. Today, my favourite things have been a lie-in with Jemma next to me on my bed; porridge with chopped pear and pecans and maple syrup for breakfast; a good ride on Toby this afternoon, along with the pleasure of a new blue saddlepad and bandages for him, both actually secondhand bargains bought online; and chocolate honeycomb fudge from a local cafe for pudding this evening. Animals and nice food - I am blessed indeed. And only a few raindrops actually fell on me. And I took some photos of the leaves.

I hope you can find a few favourite things in your day, too.