Three Beautiful Things

1. My brother phones to talk about Christmas presents. I tell him I want a kitchen time -- 'You know, like Mrs Hollins had?' Mrs Hollins was our nursery school teacher, twenty-five years ago. It felt good to describe something like that, and not have to explain it. 2. Baby Elodie comes to visit, wearing a very silly red hat, bringing us stockings stuffed with tiny presents. She dribbles on us all 3. In a crisis, people who do what needs to be done without asking questions. And later, getting the 'all clear' text message.

I've been posting on Your Messages -- each day you have the chance to win a place in an anthology by writing 300 words. 1. What I have always thought of as a clogged ditch has swollen into a stream after the rain. 2. The call to dinner -- a pan of spicy red sauce in which two chicken thighs have been cooking. 3. I catch sight of the faint white line under my eye from where I cut my face open in Africa. I remember never being worried that it might be disfiguring -- even when I looked in the mirror and saw the wounds hanging open. Even when I woke up the next morning in hospital and really thought about what I had done. I think this was partly because at uni I had a housemate with a scar. When Ali was cold or excited, a scar as long as my middle finger showed up red on her cheek from where, aged 11, she had fallen through a window. She was beautiful and confident and men came up to her and wanted to know about the scar. It was never seen as an ugly thing, or something to be ashamed ...

1. Our boss is back from his holidays. He spends a morning smoothing out all the quarrels that have blown out of proportion in his absence. 'I need another holiday.' 2. Oli drops in to see us -- mother and baby are still a bit shy but will visit soon. He says: 'I'm different. I walked out of the birthing centre and I saw the sky, and I thought "How beautiful". And I saw my tomato plants had all died because I haven't watered them and I thought: "I don't care. It's not important."' 3. When I was six, they lined us up on the wall in front of the school and told us to count passing cars. We struggled, and they taught us how to tally -- using four lines struck through with a fifth to keep count. I thought of it as a little fence to keep sheep in order. It's one of the few things I learnt in maths that I still use today -- often when I'm keeping track of a repetitive task.

1. Reading a news story about boxing being introduced back into British schools reminded me of the chaplain at my prep school, who was rumoured to have been a boxer in his youth. Commonly known as Trev the Rev (Mr Vicary to his face), he always made me think of a baby because he was mostly bald with some wispy white fair hair and he had a wide open mouthed smile that made people want to smile right back. The other thing he made me think of was Dungeon Master from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon , which in some ways was quite appropriate -- although Mr Vicary wore black, rather than red, and I'm pretty sure the bishop would have had something to say if he had grown his hair as long as Dungeon Master's. 2. Passing a field of chickens called to mind a quote from the Saki story The Mappined Life about the dullness of the local social life and how ' A moonlight hen-stealing raid with the merry-eyed curate would be infinitely more exciting; imagine the pleasure of carrying of...

1. It was a sad day today because it was PaulV's dad's funeral. But the packed church was a tribute to a good and friendly man whose pride in his son's achievements have helped Paul blossom. My favourite bits were the vicar handing cough sweets to people with November caught in their throats; and the story about PaulV's dad taking a shortcut over the wall when he was late for church. 2. Reminiscing with my grandmother about my grandfather. I remembered him rolling down the lawn in their garden with me, Robert and Rosey when we were tiny. She said that he did the same at Dunorlan Park once. 3. Fenella brings me some French bread back from her business trip to Paris.

1. I leave my curtains open when I get home at 5.30pm to let in the last of the day light and so I can compare the driving grey blue foggy rain outside with the warm creams and browns colours in my flat. 2. Reminders of Africa and all the beautiful things that trip generated. In particular, roibos tea that recalls a refreshing drink after a long walk; and the noise of my boiler starting up the central heating, which makes me think of the 'blissful ablutions' at Umvuvu Bush Camp.. 3. In yoga we did a pose that I always think I shouldn't be able to do, but I can. It is Vasisthasana -- the side plank pose.

1. Rolling spiny chestnut husks under my boots. I can feel sound nuts 'squeaking' against each other -- the deflated duds don't seem to rub against each other in the same way. Once the husks have split open, I can pick the glossy brown nuts out of the mud. 2. While hunting for chestnuts, I find a few porcini mushrooms on a mossy bank. I take the best one of them home for supper. The yellow flesh tinges blue when it is sliced -- which I reckon makes it Boletus badius . Fried with butter and added to pasta with a few sweet tomatoes and herbs, it is delicious. 3. New photos. A package from Boots -- including a lovely one of my sister crossing her eyes, and several of Andy and Fenella, battling with the veil at the wedding; and PaulV emails a few over -- two scenes from last weekend in Wales. One is a group shot and one is a B&W picture of me sitting on a ruin looking severe and stern, which will cause great hilarity at work.

1. I have been quietly wanting a copy of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West since before it was available over here. But it's been in our bookshops for a while now, and I don't know what was stopping me picking it up. On Saturday, I went into Waterstones on mischief bent, and spotted a beautiful new hardback edition. It's black linen with shiny silver and green decorations; and the pages are thick and green edged. I feel very spoilt reading it. The story isn't bad either -- enough tension to keep me turning; and the characters are nice enough to be likeable but bad enough to be interesting. Also, I've always been fond of Oz and I'm enjoying exploring a more grown-up, darker version. 2. A mother is cramming babies into her car and the passenger door is open so it blocks half the pavement. The other half of the pavement is blocked by her little boy. He glares at me threateningly and waves a cupressus twig. It makes me laugh and immediately...

1. My father has achieved his 2005 aim of getting 1,000 photos on to the photo library Alamy . 2. A sparrow scooting around the shed roof -- for mysterious sparrow reasons -- with a leaf in its beak. 3. Suddenly recalling a girl I knew at uni. Sara Gardiner McNeil was a few years older than us, and at the time was incredibly sophisticated compared with us kiddies come straight from school. She kept a flat in Newcastle and when I was dumped by a boyfriend she kidnapped me and took me there for the night. We went grocery shopping in Fenwick's food court and ate smoked salmon straight from the packet without bread or lemon or anything. Sara once passed me on the stairs and announced that she was going to find her kalos kagathos -- it's ancient Greek for young nobleman, or a knight, or a young man that everyone talks about. Sara, wherever you are, hope you found him in the end.

1. I have to get a passport picture, which I have been putting off and off. The picture has to last ten years, so I don't want one I hate. Also, there is added pressure because I am quite fond of the present picture: Ali grabbed my ankle as the shutter went and it caught me at the moment I was about to laugh. Picking a photoshop at random I went in and found Caroline, a friend of a friend, working there. So I got my picture taken by someone who cared a little about me having a photo I liked. It's not brilliant, but it's not a picture I'm going to resent until 2015. 2. I know tumble dryers aren't green, but on days like this when it's too cold and damp to get washing dry, they are wonderful. 3. Eating sticky ginger cake and drinking tea while catching up with Fenella and Andy.

1. A tea set decorated with orange and gold knobbly dragons (very much for the European market according the antiques shop owner) made of the finest translucent porcelain. As you drain your cup a geisha appears in the bottom -- her image is created by different thicknesses of china. 2. 'I've never had this picture on the wall since I painted it,' says our grandmother. So we hang her leaping salmon at the bottom of the stairs where she can see it often. 3. Granny told us about her puppy, Jason. 'I used to cycle to work with him in a basket on my bike. But as he got bigger, first his front legs and then his back legs hung out. And then he got so heavy I couldn't steer. So I told him he had to run along behind.' Jason was an Alsation.

1. Paddling across a stream and feeling the coolness through my boots. 2. Gutting a fish, because it's never as difficult or as yucky as I think it's going to be. 3. I like this story from my grandfather's memoirs: ...a worried group of men looking in the direction of my carrier where I could just see the figure of Bernard Todd, my driver. Sgt. Lawes told me that Todd had received a cable telling him that a missile, it would have been one of the massive V 2 rockets which were doing terrible destruction round London at that time, had destroyed his family home and killed his wife and other members of the family. He was understandably distraught and Sgt. Lawes feared he might do something stupid. He had a loaded rifle with him. I walked over to talk with Bernard racking my brains for a way of helping him get on top of his grief. He said he didn't care if he lived or died, he wanted to kill Germans, he would transfer to a rifle company. I replied that this could be arranged...

1. Drawing an evil pencil moustache and devil beard on PaulV -- he looked satanic. 2. Meeting another singleton who is really positive about the lifestyle. 3. Chatting to a couple of girls from South Shields with broad Sunderland accents. I felt nostalgic for Durham and my housemate Other Claire, who came from Sunderland; and for the boyfriend I had at uni, who used to laugh at my barths and glarsses and parths.

1. I like walking by myself because I can set my pace. I lose my breath on hills if I go too fast, but if I go my own speed I usually judge it pretty well so I don't need to catch my breath at the top. 2. Seeing deer's bottoms in the woods. They are white with a dark ring, almost like a target. I was trying to think of all the reasons why deer seem so magical. I think it's the way they leap along like merry-go-round horses; or perhaps its just that they are so shy and so quick that if you see them at all it seems like a miracle. Or maybe it's their size and wildness. They must be nearly the largest wild animal we have left, and seeing them always makes me think of King Arthur stories. 3. Sweet chestnut husks. These were all empty, but the inside was still velvetty, and I still enjoyed remembering one of my classmates at primary school finding one and carrying it back wrapped in a handkerchief for the nature table. We all pretended it was a little green hedgehog.

1. I like the Three Chimneys pub between Biddenden and Sissinghurst. It doesn't have three chimneys, though, and the sign shows a man in blue looking at a crossroads. The name comes from the days when there were French prisoners of the Napoleonic war in Sissinghurst Castle. They were allowed to walk as far as the crossroads, which they called 'Trois chemains'. 2. After lunch, Rosey and I fall asleep on the lawn. When I wake up, the pattern of the grass is pressed into my arms. 3. While we were visting Grandpa's grave, the undertaker and his wife, who were walking their dogs along the footpath, came over to say hallo and help admire the new headstone. This undertaker has done lots of our family's funerals - the year before I was born, he helped bring my other grandfather home from Sicily after he died on holiday. At my great aunt's funeral he told me that doing the reading was a very brave and honourable thing. And at my other grandmother's funeral, he said h...

1. Back in 1987, great swathes of English woodland were flattened by a freak storm. We used to climb to the top of Starvegoose bank in Bedgebury Forest to look out at the view. You could see out across the valley to Goudhurst. Yesterday, we climbed up and the trees have grown so much that you can't see anything. I don't suppose there'll be another storm in my lifetime, so I shall be able to boast to my children about seeing the view. 2. Spotted an eft in a tiny pond. An eft is a baby newt. They look like the little dagger marks used to indicate footnotes; or one of Tove Jansson's hattifatteners . 3. Sunset changed the light in the valley so that the pink geraniums by the front door seemed to glow.

1. Robert inherited a bright orange leather armchair that revolves. When it was in Granny Nichola's house we liked to sit in it and spin until we were dizzy. Apart from the fact that it spins, I think we loved the colour - we were used to upholstery in cream or brown or faded colours. He has it in his room, which has a clear-night-sky coloured carpet. Orange and blue is one of my favourite colour combinations. Not particularly to wear or in my flat, I mean - I just like to see it around. 2. Last thing at night, I sit (in the orange chair) with my knitting and quiz Robert about Peru. I learn that in the market you see sacks of guinea pigs for sale; and that you can get a bed for the night for £3 and chicken and chips and salad for 80p. And that Peruvian pop music is not much to listen to, but that people do salsa dancing in the nightclubs. 3. Breakfast at Tiffany's - my new favourite novella. Holly is full of contradictions - inconstant yet faithful, savvy yet naive, slovenly y...

1. Having fresh herbs to snip over supper, and a homegrown cucumber. 2. When I was very small, we had a series of books about Nurse Matilda . Mrs Covelli read us the first one at school, and I came home demanding the rest. They went down a storm with the whole family - helped along because Edward Ardizzone drew the pictures, and he is The Mother's favouritest illustrator in the whole entire world. Christianna Brand tells about the Brown children, who do things like fill the family's boots with syrup, feed paper to the poodle to try and make him stammer and steal grapes from hospital patients and tread them into wine in a hip bath. There is also a baby with starfish hands and falling-down nappies. One day, a mysterious nanny arrives to look after them. Nurse Matilda is ferociously ugly, with a tooth like a tombstone. When she bangs her big black stick, the children are forced to continue with whatever mischief they are making. Yesterday, I saw a poster for a film called Nanny Mc...

1. It rained and rained and rained. I always wonder at how much water can be held in air; and how it all suddenly falls out when the temperature drops. 2. Learning a little about illustrator Rosie Cecil O'Neil, who created the Kewpies, at Toonpedia . In the divorce proceedings with her second husband, he cited her incessant baby-talk and she cited his taciturn moodiness. And the idea of Kewpies came to her in a dream. 3. Last night, I dreamed about Anna, an old university friend who I haven't seen since graduating. Her photo fell down the other day, so I'm racking my brains to think why I should be remembering her. The photo isn't a particularly flattering one - she's at her desk and in her dressing gown. I love it because despite having her studies interrupted by a camera flash, she has an enormous Anna grin on her face. I can almost hear her sensible, comforting advice, freely doled out in a Wigan accent: 'It'll be better in the morning.' 'Well I...

1. The taste of fresh parsley. 2. It stopped raining for an hour towards the end of the morning. All was still outside, except the smoke from the hospital incinerator, because the wind was too little to move the water heavy leaves. 3. I went round Fenwicks looking for new handcream. All the different ranges - Crabtree and Evelyn Jojoba , Summer Hill and Nantucket Briar ; Roger et Gallet's sandal wood ; Bronnley White Iris and English Fern - remind me of friends and relatives and all the years of my life.