Three Beautiful Things

1. To swim outdoors. 2. Our laburnum tree is out -- this time last year, I was sad that we wouldn't see its pure yellow flowers again. It's one good thing about the flat sale taking so long. 3. We walk down through the woods on the Common. Bird song falls all around us. A robin scatters notes from a blunt dead oak branch

1. The Common, with its bare trees and clear ground, seems barren at the end of winter. But it’s smiling in the sunshine as if it has a secret happiness. 2. Crocuses (baby mauve, egg-yolk yellow and whole milk white) have pushed their way through the khaki dead ground in the park. Today, they are the only pure bright colours in all creation (apart from the sky, I mean). 3. The financial advisor comes round, and I ask him a question that has been bothering me for months. He looks over a few pages, taps on his calculator and says that it's best to leave things as they are.

1. On the common, the smell of cut green wood where workmen are clearing the banks. It's a like a carpentry workshop, and a like a cold day. 2. There is so much to love about the Warner Brothers' short I Love to Singa -- the story of a little owl who dared to sing jazz against the wishes of his classically-trained parents. The mother owl's distress always puts a little lump in my throat, and then the cartoon hits me in the face with the 'No we didn't, lady" gag. If you've got eight minutes, give it a viewing. 3. Nick normally hauls the bins up to the road once a fortnight and grumbles about how he always has to do it. At 5pm, I hear the old rrrrollll -scrape of the recycling bins trundling up the drive, and think for a moment that Nick has come home early. He hasn't -- but when he does get in, he's very pleased at not having to do a chore he dislikes.

1. When I have finished scraping seeds from a vanilla pod, I find a sweet black smear caught under my engagement ring. 2. PaulV is not really listening when I tell him when I'll be able to join him in the late afternoon sun on the common. I think he's that keen to not be at home, or anywhere near work. 3. Nick is trimming wedding invitations with my paper cutter. "This is a good piece of kit," he says as he swish-chicks his way through the pile of cards.

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.

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.