Snip, lettuce and spectacle.

1. The slinking curves of a black cat shape has been cropped out of the bright world background.

2. To tear apart a head of Little Gem Lettuce, twist the sunlight yellow heart leaves off the bitter root, rinse off the mud and greefly and spin (rrr-rrr-rrr-wumph) in the salad dryer.

3. Before I can start reading, I must dip my glasses in the bath to stop them steaming over. The water reveals a hidden rainbow sheen on the lenses.

No thanks, the runner and lavender.

1. Those people who buttonhole you in the street to persuade you to sign up for something: I like to tell them I'm in a hurry.

2. Jubilant Nick comes home triumphant after running his yearly three mile race in 35 minutes.

3. My fingers are faintly sticky from the dried lavender I've been stuffing into an embroidered heart.

Rain, wet feet and lime blossom.

1. The rain comes, hissing on the ground and clearing the air.

2. I like walking in the rain wearing sandals so that the water goes in and then comes out again.

3. The lime blossom smells even better (sweet, sour and charming) wet than dry.

Voice, last and hooked.

1. At the other end of the phone he says: "It's good to hear your voice."

2. There is one loaf of bread left in the bakers. I buy it.

3. We listen to Tartuffe on the radio -- it's a translation by Roger McGough in funny, current wordgamey verse. I am hooked from start to finish.

Free fruit, dog having fun and the allotments.

1. The wild raspberries are ripe: all the sweeter for being free.

2. In the park, a strange-looking dog (it has the head and legs of a terrier, but a barrel-like body that makes it look like a well-fed piglet) runs up the path, looking like its having the time of its life.

3. I like to walk along the path through the middle of the allotments, and see how other people's vegetables are doing; and to admire the ingenuity of their cold frames made from old french windows; and to watch their CD bird scarers flickering in the sun.

Not alone, needs some work and teabreak.

1. I have to do the weekly food shopping alone because Nick is out looking for mortgages. As I struggle home with the bags, I try to remember when I last had to do this by myself -- it was a long time ago.

2. We view a house that has 1970s geometric sunflower wallpaper in the bathroom. It must have been quite something when it was new. In the cellar, the cobwebs hang in swags and sagging stalactites from the low ceiling.

3. In the graveyard, the volunteers explain (with a trace of guilt) that they are on their teabreak.

The rain comes, scarlet and the gathering.

1. After a period of bright hot days, waking to a cool, wet, misty morning, and joining the earth and plants in a sigh of relief.

2. Scarlet squares of red pepper and quarters of golden tomatoes among the green and purple salad leaves.

3. I like to see teenagers sitting on a bank on the common: a place to be away from their parents and their duties.

Bus stop, salad leaves and last class.

1. At the top of the stairs, Anna has a whole wall of her children's drawings. I love the bright red corregated cardboard bus.

2. Putting homegrown salad leaves on the supper table.

3. Michael brings strawberries and cakes to our last art class. I'm going to miss my Thursday night drawing. I really didn't think I could draw when I started; and now I can, so that's a result.

Pink milk, diseases and sweetpeas.

1. I put the last of the stewed strawberries on my cereal to turn the milk pink.

2. Rosey disappears into the bathroom. A moment later, she shouts through the door: "I think I've got internalised tattooing disease and logopetria." I start to wonder what she's up to... and then remember that I left my copy of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases in there.

3. My father apologises for the tiny bunch of sweetpeas; but even the brave few have perfumed the kitchen.

Got it done, different inside and red dots.

1. I had an awful experience trying to book some train tickets recently, and I've been putting off trying again and putting it off... and off... and the people who are doing the same journey as us said: 'You'd better get in quick if you want the cheap tickets' and I put it off some more and worried about it. And then yesterday, I did it. Tickets are in the post.

2. We view a house that is 1960s ugly on the outside, but wonderful inside where an architect has put in a glass door to the garden that runs the full height of the split level sitting room, dining room and kitchen.

3. The paprika falls on my soup in dots, which expand suddenly like ink drops in water.

Fruit, foxglove and a start.

My friend Chris, who was mentioned in the first 3BT post, is hoping for enough votes to make his cat Guido The Face of Wiskas. He really is a beautiful thing, and Chris is ridiculously fond of him, so your votes would make my day! You don't have to register -- it's just a click and you're away.

1. I go to grab my phone from my bag, and the box of strawberries sings out a perfumed breath.

2. A lone foxglove growing out of the cliff under Rock Cottage.

3. Starting to read a new book.

Can't catch me, engine and that's enough.

1. Early in the morning there is a smear of something white -- potato starch, or spilt milk -- on the worktop. But when I try to wipe it off, it turns out to be sunlight creeping round to the dark side of the house.

2. Hearing the steam engine working faster to pull us up a hill.

3. He reaches up and hands the cake back to his mother. She says: 'Lovely: you've licked off the jam, and that's it?'

Baroque, paddling and outrunning the rain.

1. At the V&A's baroque exhibition, we can put our faces close to a ewer decorated with putti. Two of them are fighting: one has the other by the chin and is trying to push him back down into the sea.

2. The paddling pool in the V&A courtyard is full of children, damp-around-the-edges. Japanese women try to get in shot with a tiny and determined person dressed head-to-knee in a bottle green sun suit.

3. On the train, we see clouds piling up behind us. After we get home, Twitter and Facebook come alive with snippets about the sudden and torrential rain in London.

In the sun, here it comes and retro pulp.

1. On a hot day, I like to sit on the bench half way up the zig-zag path and watch people toiling up the hill.

2. While we are having our evening catch-up, a suitable title for one of my radio-plays-in-progress pops out of my mouth like an unexpected sneeze.

3. Nick produces another retro pulp film from his stash -- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow -- a wonderful piece of art deco noir action involving giant robots rampaging through wartime New York and planes that turn into submarines.

Stay green, in the shade and sweets.

I've woken up my old blog Once Around the Park. 30-word accounts of a daily walk along the same route.

1. I like this time of year, when it is hot, but still green.

2. I am always afraid to put the shading into my pictures -- it's hard with portraits because the directional shading I'm so fond of looks like wrinkles, or sunburn. But when the teacher warns us that profile pictures can end up looking flat, I take a deep breath and give it a go. At the end of the class, he praises the depth of our portraits.

3. Sharing a box of mithai with Nick -- we're lucky enough to have a brilliant exotic supermarket in Tunbridge Wells (The Spice Store on Grosvenor Road), and a bite or two of an Indian sweet make a good change to our usual Jaffacakes.

Beetroots, chorizo and shutting out.

I'm looking for part-time work: does anyone know of a position (two or three days a week) in or around Tunbridge Wells for a diligent editorial person with a bit of web experience? I would be very grateful if you would drop me an email.

1. Fresh beetroots, hard and dense. They are the purple of dark places and secrets.

2. I fry some juicy red chorizo as a treat. I like to see the sausage skins turn opaque and then black.

3. We turn off the news, draw the curtains and lock the front door: we've seen enough of the outside world for today.

Reds and yellows, herbs and soup.

1. I take Louise a few red and yellow nasturtiums that I grew from seed. As I pick them, I notice -- really notice for the first time -- that only one yellow plant came up; and that the orange ones are all different: deep ember red; a flat plastic orange; flame colours and scarlet.

2. I like chopping coriander, and a few seedlings thinned from my spring onion trough.

3. A bowl of hot and sour soup with a few noodles and some pieces of chicken hidden in its corn-gold depths.

Who are you like, the marvel and video gaming.

1. The estate agent tells us that he found his seven-year-old son crying because he likes books, not football: "I'm not like the other boys." "But," the estate agent told him, "You are like me because I love books, too."

2. The other estate agent admires my sunflower and says in his rapid-fire French accent: "I give these to the children: they grow so quickly and..." he shows how their eyes widen in wonder.

3. The flat is empty -- apart from me, a Peanut Butter Chunky Kitkat and Lego Indiana Jones (which Nick gave me for my birthday).

Orders, useful and beautiful and a dye.

1. Deadheading. I want you to concentrate on flowers, not capers. The nose-twisting smell of nasturtium sap.

2. Nick's mother tells me to spend it on "something nice that you need."

3. This plant food is such a bright blue that I am afraid it will tint my garden with undersea colours.

Be still, visitors and he ate it.

1. This morning at 7am, I am finally allowed to open the parcels that have been appearing all week. Then I am kicked out of bed for wriggling and told to do some writing so my poor tired fiance can have a decent lie in.

2. The sight of three friends walking towards me down the drive.

3. Fenella hands me a beautiful card with a real, tiny piece of knitting on it (complete with teeny needles) and apologises for the lack of present: she left it on the side, and her husband ate it.

4. I pick up a book of Viking Romances given to me last month by Plutarch. I am amazed at how violent and sexy and wild an rude and ALIVE they are.

5. We watch one of Nick's presents to me -- Australia -- and I let it play me like a lute. I laugh and pull the blanket over my face by turns; and at the end, because I've invested so much in the characters, and because I love 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', tears spring to my eyes.

Attention-seeking, the queue and getting rid.

1. I draw the curtain behind the monitor -- the bright sun makes it hard for me to work. But it still teases me for attention by projecting the pattern of the nets through the curtain.

2. We have to wait a while in the butchers -- but that's all right because it gives us time to decide exactly what we would like. His meat is laid out on antique china platters and dishes.

3. I need more space again. The stack of books in the hall is waist high by the time I've finished.

Cricket week, boys and the end of the day.

3BT has passed the quarter million hit mark yesterday, which was very pleasing. Thanks for your continued support.

And my cousin Amy texted recently to say that she'd seen an elderly couple in a shopping centre ballroom dancing to no music.

1. Nick shares some of his favourite cricket noises: the sound the scoreboard being updated; and the twack of the ball hitting the advertising hoardings.

2. A party of schoolboys had got bored of watching the real cricket, and started their own game using a plastic chair for a wicket, and shoes for bats.

3. Once supper is enjoyed and washed up, I like the hour when we sit down on the sofa and lean against each other.

Age gap, hats here and moving back in.

1. Overheard: "I'm the oldest, Mommy. Stop treating me like the youngest."

2. Overheard at Waterloo Station on Ladies Day at Ascot: "All these beautiful women wandering about with these like massive hats on... And I'm all like:" She veers from side to side to show how the finery has been distracting her.

3. We put the mirror and the towel rings back in the bathroom, clean everything and start to move our stuff back in. It feels finished.

Howzat, decorating and bee.

1. Nick looks so happy to be striding off to the cricket with his sun hat, packed lunch and book.

2. A second coat of paint makes the colour deeper and purer. We did the first coat in the winter -- now we can open all the windows as we work, which makes such a difference.

3. A stout bee at work deep inside one of my orange nasturtiums

The light, staying out of the rain and the backyard.

Fiona Robyn has interviewed me on 100 Readers about her book The Blue Handbag. I've passed my copy on to Lucy over at The Antidote.

1. I collared the window cleaners while they were working on the flat next door. Within 20 minutes, they've done a job we were dreading, and the flat is full of light.

2. I like to feel raindrops falling on the back of my neck as I pot up some seedlings.

2. The estate agent gives us a lift home because it's raining.

3. She has strawberries in a clay pot; and parsley grown from seed growing in her backyard that is shining wet after a rainstorm.

Froglets, bat cave and elder flowers.

1. Stand still on the bank of the pond. Tiny frogs are getting out of our way.

2. I stand on tip-toes to peer through the hole in the walled up bat cave. The air inside is cold and musty, and I can make out junk by the light that slants in through the high slots left for the bats.

3. Along the way, I pick a posy of elder flowers. I think that these creamy, foamy white flowers are the sort of thing I'd like to have for my wedding -- but of course, that's not possible for November; and the white flowers wouldn't show up in the photos. I take them home and make some elderflower cordial to drink before supper.

Basket, got it back and anniversary.

1. I like walking through town carrying a trug, containing a few plants for a friend.

2. I am glad to collect my engagement ring from the jeweller -- and now it doesn't keep slipping off my finger.

3. This is the time of year we celebrate our anniversary. We go to the restaurant where we had our first date, and spend the evening grinning at each other and not saying much.

Last day, front pages and planting on.

I've had an email from Sarah at Whooga Boots (a variety of ugg boot) offering a discount for 3BT readers: if you go to the Whooga Boots website and enter the code THREEBEAUT into the box in the cart, you will get a £19 ($30) discount.

I don't own any Whoogas, or any kind of Australian sheepskin boot; and I don't get anything from posting this offer; but I thought I'd share the love. I've checked around, and they seem to be doing a big push via bloggers.

1. I'm so tired and bored of my walk to work and today is the last day I have to do it.

2. At lunch, we pass round the front pages that we have -- in secret -- been making for all the leavers. I think the one made for me is the funniest: the lead is about Clar Grunt, 12, walking to Essex to smash up the Sub-O-Matic 5000 with 'a small hammer'.

3. My tomato seedlings resemble children on their first day at school. They look very little -- but so grown up -- transplanted into their trough.

Trainees, open eye and last of the light.

1. Two guide dog puppies (long legs and big paws) in the shopping centre. The yellow one watches the tip of a furled umbrella carried by a woman walking past. He tries so hard to leave it, but at last can't resist having a chew. The black dog fails by stretching up to grab a shopping bag.

2. We are doing self-portraits in art. I liked drawing a practice eye and suddenly finding that it was looking at me.

3. Nick is not amused when I call him away from his baseball to walk back up the hill and look at the sunset. 'I've been walking down this road for 20 years. I know about the sunsets.' But this one is particularly good -- the edges of the clouds shine as if they have been heated to white hot.

It's raining, good post and reading in the bath.

Hallo to all the Hungarians visiting. Thanks for your interest.

1. If it's raining, I take the bus into work instead of walking. Sometimes, it looks like it's going to rain and then doesn't -- and I feel bad for spending money I could have saved, and guilty for not taking the exercise. Today there were definite rain drops, and I felt I'd made the right choice.

2. In my pile of mail is a card from the postman saying I have a parcel waiting; and a snail badge from Sheer Sumptuosity.

3. I lie back a violet-scented bubble bath and start reading Twisted Wing -- it's a gory university murder mystery set in a fictional Cambridge College. I'm not normally a serial killer story fan; but I do like a good university novel, and this is from Long Barn who is publishing the 3BT book. It's a real gore-spattered page-turner, full of solid characters that you love and hate by turns. One of the view-point characters is a forensic psychologist, and it's fascinating (and educational) to see the world through his eyes, too.