Three Beautiful Things

1. In the small hours, when I can't get back to sleep, there's a friendly, familiar Terry Pratchett book waiting on my phone. 2. We stray into a bookshop and when we come out blinking in the sunlight, the brick pavements are puddled, which suggests we have missed a brief downpour. 3. The scent of cedar lingering on my skin from the unscheduled bath I took this morning.

1. The shower passes and the sunset applies dabs and touches of gold to the west-facing windows on Broadwater Down. 2. Talking and taking long draughts from our pints of London Pride leaves as refreshed as the rain-washed town outside. 3. The last orders bell at 9.30 says that's enough drinking and talking -- time to go home to bed.

1. This morning, the temperature has dropped and cooler air ventilates the start of my working week. 2. We see the downpour hit Scotland 400 miles away in a family WhatsApp group; and then it reaches us. 3. I have set aside four hours for this task; but I come in at just over three.

1. I have to wake him early today. Our fingertips touch. 2. We go out into the sunny afternoon in search of fun and find live music in the courtyard outside The Sussex Arms. We have a pint, then phone home to delegate our responsibilities, and get another half each, and a bag of crisps. 3. An older lady in a white dress dances like she has no regrets.

1. I find a stick with the right sort of fork arrangement for pulling down elderberry branches. 2. There are babies everywhere, being held and rocked and jigged in time with the music, or sitting splayed on the grass with picnic food in their fists or sleeping in their pushchairs in the shade. 3. The naan is the kind packed with a layer of bright yellow coconut.

1. An enormous fat bumble bee at work. She is so bulky that she can knock dead blossoms out of the way as she gets right in to the new jasmine flowers. 2. Green beans squeaking in my teeth. 3. We watch The Goonies . It's fun to see it through adult eyes; and it's fun to see my daughter suddenly understanding gags and references that she's seen in other media.

1. Within fifteen minutes of messaging, we have a GP appointment; and less than an hour after that, we're in front of a medic. 2. A garden right by the pavement crammed with bright garden centre flowers. When it comes to end of summer colour, going shopping is sometimes a good solution. 3. The book I am reading to her has finally found its feet and I'm feeling disappointed and urgent when the time comes to put it down for the evening.

1. We've had fun and a good rest in Margate, but now it's time to leave, we're glad to turn our faces towards home. 2. Catching glimpses of Canterbury Cathedral, and the Wye chalk crown as the train cuts through the Kent countryside. 3. Alec and I start out playing Baldur's Gate. We spend most of the session creating our characters and tweaking their appearances; and then quite a bit more of it going 'Wow' at the cutscenes in which a creepy biomechanical airship harasses a Bologna-a-like city.

1. The startling sight on this hot hot day of women in bikinis and full make-up including false eyelashes and thick black brows. 2. Kokeshi dolls in miniature straw capes gaze through the dusty window of a junk shop. I would like to bust some of them out, but the shop is closed in Tuesdays. 3. We have had a quiet day and are starting to look and feel rested.

 1. We are hurrying with our cases over the bridge. We end up behind a man in railway uniform carrying a pushchair for a stressed mother who also got caught by the platform change. 'Don't worry,' he tells us. 'The train can't leave without me.' 2. We step carefully along a chalk tunnel, going steadily downwards, grazing our heads on the ceiling before stumbling into a chamber 40 foot high -- Margate Caves is easily worth the fiver it costs to get in. 3. In our bedroom, which faces away from the glaring afternoon sun, there's a fan gently whirring.

 1. In the night someone has been eating cake, going by the crumbs on the chopping board. 2. I manage today's waiting with a Terry Pratchett book from the library loaded on to my phone.  3. When I get home, a long cool drink. 

1. There are drifts of mauve heather blossom here and there on the common where the trees have been cleared to open up heathland. 2. I rather covet the black portfolio in soft faux leather she has bought for herself -- but it's very much her style, not mine. 3. The way dried mushrooms expand in a bowl of water between lunchtime and dinnertime.

1. I happen to be gazing out of the window on a screen break when a woman arrives back at her car just as the warden is lifting his camera to give her parking ticket.  2. I look up astonished at the curls she has put in my hair. 3. While Nick washes up, I'm at the kitchen table slicing and stoning plums for a traybake we are making later.

1. I'm having a busy few days as I work towards some deadlines, but I know it won't be forever, and I've got lots to look forward to at the back end of the week. 2. I bite into a mauve-coloured mochi, and I suppose I expected a purple filling -- but it's bright yellow, to represent a passion fruit. 3. It is still raining steadily, but I can see the sunset reflecting off the dormer windows on the big houses on Broadwater Down, so I know clear skies are coming.

1. I'd marvelled that the slugs had left the dandelions by the back door ragged and torn -- but it turns out a  wood pigeon, in formal grey as if coming from a wedding, has been dropping down for a healthy snack. 2. I am down on my knees embarrassing my daughter by trying to work out if the yellow capped ceps have the same tasty smell the same as the brown capped ceps (I don't think they do) when I notice a teenage girl with long red-gold hair telling her grandmother about an amanita she has picked out of the hedge. The grandmother says, 'Now please put it down.' The girl says, 'I'm not going to eat it or anything.' 3. We follow a cloudbank of clean white thistledown along the hedge.

1. I am sure the rowan berries are still orange. Once they turn red, you have to think that summer is coming to a close. 2. We find a patch of ceps, damp velvet brown caps among the leaf litter. I pick one -- the scent is so enticing that I would like to eat it there and then -- and bring it home. While supper cooks, I clean it and slice it and fry it in butter and eat it.  3. When I lift off the damp cloth, the pizza dough has bellied up, doubling in size as promised.