Freeze frame

Green and pink and blonde and sunshine. A small warm body pressed against me, smooth skin and laughing grey-green eyes three inches from mine. A breeze dappling the shadows of the leaves and the swoop of a swing.

Yesterday, Mabel and I were killing some time in the playground. I sat on the swing beside hers, and she immediately hopped down and demanded a "spider". (This is what they call it when one child sits astride another on the swing, so their legs all dangle down to look like a four-legged arachnid. When she sits on me, it's not so even, but it's very cosy.) She sat up on my lap and hugged me tight as I launched us off the ground, her head nestled into my chest.

After a few minutes she moved her hands from my back to the chains of the swing and leaned out from me, laughing as we swung up so high and swept down so low. The viewfinder of my mind captured her hot-pink tutu frothing out under a minty-green smock, the intermittent September sunshine, tiny lens flares on my speckled glasses. An uncomplicated few minutes of simple love after a difficult morning.

It was one of those moments. You think you'll never forget them, but you'd like a camera just in case.

I didn't have my camera, but I can write it and keep it here, and that will have to do.