My first white hair was dead straight. It leapt out from the side of my head like a diving board. Weeks later, I started seeing more of them, coarse and wiry and haphazard in location. More recently, I discovered a single bright white hair in my left eye brow. I’m pretty happy about that one. In fact, I’m pretty happy about all of them. I’m not sure what I’ll do when they really start to take over. I’ve never coloured my hair, and the maintenance sounds like a bore. But if my whites look anything like this. I’m in.

Carnations have always been a bit naff, mostly because we see them year-round at the corner shop, next to baby’s breath. But there are some larger ones about called spray carnations that have frilly edges and come in beautiful colours like nude and plum, and next to the typical red and yellow ones, they look positively grand. I bought a large bunch yesterday, and added a hodge podge of blue hydrangeas, pink lisianthus, cockscomb (that velvety pink flower) and some gerbera daisies. They’re sitting in a turquoise water jug, and the whole things is a happy thing to look at.

“God gave you two hands,” is what the English warn about raising more than two children. One, two, seven children –– I don’t know a single mother who doesn’t wish for more hands. It’s how I felt this morning, as I pegged it up Spadina chasing an Uber that had sped off with two of my three children in it. The third, a tiny-just-turned-four-year-old, stood alone on the curb in a flowery rain jacket as I ran away from her, screaming at the white Toyota. We’d decided to Uber to school because it was raining, and I told the driver we’d be making a stop at Bloor and Spadina to drop off the littlest one. Goodness knows how, but the driver misunderstood and thought I meant that I was getting out also, and that he would be driving the other two solo. Even as I watched him drive off, (with my phone, too) I was almost certain that that was what he had assumed. But almost certain turns mothers into Nike. It did this mother. I didn’t run, I flew. Variations on these crazy seconds play out for us all, regardless of how many kids you have,  and how much help you’ve got. Even super efficient, got-it-all-under-control Mums get caught in torrential thunderstorms with no umbrella. We’re human. With superhuman qualities, when required. We turn our bodies into a canopy. We learned a lesson or two; communicate better. Speak up when in doubt (neither child said a word). We did all burst out laughing though once I was back in the car.

There’s a certain painting that I’m drawn to –– the meeting of simple forms in strong colours on a canvas –– that I’ve seen many variations on of late. But there’s something about French artist, Caroline Denervaud‘s work that stands out. AnOther Magazine, describes her paintings as a “meta millefeuille” which I find so apt. “Few can claim the truly tactile relationship that Denervaud explores within her work. Sheathing the floor of her studio with swathes of paper, and combining dance and movement with the application of pen or paint, Denervaud creates shapes that offer a direct trace of her movements.” Her process is fascinating and idiosyncratic, and that may be what we feel in her paintings, and what distinguishes them from others.

It’s windy this morning and the leaves are falling like raindrops. It’s a weird time of year, when the intermittent bursts of heat start to feel like party guests that don’t want to leave. It’s sort of sad and wistful. But the show must go on, and while these days feel like a gift to warm weather lovers like me, I know it’s time to put on a coat, walk out the door and start something new.