Recipe for sir, curtain up and fried fish.

1. At the farmer's market, the fishmonger's assistant has transformed from a sullen teenager to a brisk, cheerful stallholder. He says to Nick: "This is a recipe for you, Sir -- beer batter. The beer needs to be very cold and fizzy."

2. The windows in Hoopers department store are now hidden behind red curtains. A notice announces that all will be revealed on November 6. Every year, they borrow ballet costumes for a magical Christmas display. We run into Katie on the way down the hill, and she speculates on this year's theme -- Peter Pan, she reckons.

3. A rapid web search reveals that beer batter should be the consistency of emulsion paint. I tell Nick, and point him towards a bowl, a whisk and a large pan. The fish is delicious -- crisp and golden brown.

Enough, twist and Barbara Pym.

1. There is quite a lot of lemon curd left in the bottom of the bowl -- not enough to put in a jar; but enough to go on top of my yoghurt at lunchtime.

2. Downton Abbey -- we watched Sunday's episode, with its jaw-dropping I-did-not-see-that-coming plot twist.

3. I wish I could remember who suggested Barbara Pym's books -- I picked up Jane and Prudence and I think it's wonderful - a steely account of 1950s middle class match-making.. The quote on the cover is from Philip Larkin, who lays aside his curmudgeonly cynicism to say that he'd rather read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen. Lucky, lucky Barbara Pym.

More sleep, bread pudding and making a risotto.

1. I am not waking up this morning. It is pointed out to me that I am growing a baby and probably need the sleep for a reason. The next thing I know, it's half past nine.

2. There is a satisfying heft to this tin of bread pudding.

3. Finding a perfect slice of mushroom in the packet of dried porcini. And the smell of vermouth boiling off in my risotto.

16 weeks, backroom stock and how to be a mother.

1. There is another 16-week mother at my antenatal yoga group. So I'm not the baby of the class any more.

2. I go down to Oxfam to prepare for Saturday's Bookfest event. The manager shows me their box of interesting items found in books (school photos, ancient letters, yellowed pages fallen from French novels). Then we rifle through the backroom stock in search of 3BTish books for the window display. If you're in TWells tomorrow (Saturday 3 July) between noon and 3pm, please pop in and say hi, and write a beautiful thing on a bookmark to slip inside a random volume.

3. Louise comes round -- she brings news about her new job, and a birthday present. It's a book of tea-time recipes. She says it's because I'm going to be a mother, and mothers need to know all sorts of recipes that no-one else does.

Sausages, mint and last one in.

I spotted today that Sprite is marking five years of 3BTing, which made me feel unaccountably proud of this little idea.

1. A fat, squashy package of sausages wrapped in paper.

2. A few leaves of mint in the potato water.

3. Quite late at night, to wriggle into bed next to my husband.

Change in the weather, The Simpsons and cooking asparagus.

1. The weather changes. Large drops of rain kick up that earthy smell.

2. I watch two episodes of The Simpsons one after the other.

3. Silver-grey bubbles form on the bottom of the asparagus pan. When I tip the water away, it is the green of a pond in high summer.

Christmas tree seeds, bread pudding and rain on washing day.

I had some very sad news yesterday -- the gardens and interiors writer Elspeth Thompson has taken her life in a bout of severe depression. She wrote a blog about converting two railway carriages into a home, and her words and pictures gave a lot of pleasure. I own several of her books, and I take them down often for inspiration, or just to enjoy them.

Elspeth was incredibly kind and supportive to 3BT -- she mentioned it in her The Wonderful Weekend Book, and I still get messages from people saying they found 3BT there.

We never met, although we emailed, and talked blogging on the phone once. I felt incredibly special to think that such an accomplished writer would take notice of me. Our emails from the early part of last summer are full of half-hatched plans to meet, and I so wish we had.

This isn't the sort of thing you come here to read, but I know that a few links to 3BT come in from dark places, so I'm going to say it. If you are suffering from depression, please, please get help. Depression is an illness (like measles or a broken leg) and it can be treated. Talk about how you are feeling to those who care about you. Talk to your GP. Talk to a suicide hotline (the Samaritans here in the UK, or The Befrienders elsewhere in the world). Open your mouth and talk.

1. We were given a bag of elephant poo compost and some Christmas tree seeds for a wedding gift. A green shoot has pushed its bowed shoulders through the surface.

2. I like the contrast between grimly wholesome brown bread pudding and the dried fruit (plump orange apricots and crimson cranberries and sharp citrus peel).

3. To see the first drops of rain, and to run outside, laughing, to get the washing in. To pull the great crisp white sheet off the line and stuff it into the washing basket.


And the podcast is up.

The workers, treacle tip and Nick's pie.

I had the pleasure of interviewing artist Lesley Featherstone recently about an exhibition of her pictures at Trinity and Town and Country Foundation Gallery that runs until March 14. She also ran some workshops for women at the gallery.

Lesley emailed me to say that she thought the article was a beautiful thing, which tickled me immensely. She added: "The other was the incredible women at the workshop Monday. The third was putting it up with Jane."

Jane is Jane Churchill, who runs the gallery, and she's a very lovely (but busy) person -- I'd really like to interview her one of these days, too!

The podcast is up.

1. I look up to see the dustman passing the window where I am working. The fourth time he passes (on his way back from replacing our bin) we exchange half nods.

2. I am making a ginger cake, and I am mystified by the instruction to add a certain weight of golden syrup and treacle. I picture myself standing there until Turpentine Sunday while the spoon dribbles a thread of syrup and the weight goes up gramme by gramme. I am so glad to remember my mother's tip -- stand the tin on the scales, and spoon out syrup until the weight drops by the amount you need.

3. At 7pm, Nick takes the pie he has baked for our supper out of the oven. He brings it into the sitting room to show me.

Use your loaf, seagulls and end of work.

1. Some of our homemade loaves cut more neatly than others. This (white with cheese and chives and mustard) is one of the tidy ones -- it's pleasing to lay out flat, even slices for my sandwich.

2. Seagulls spring into the air as if the lower cricket ground has been suddenly pulled taut.

3. Nick comes home, I stop work, and the flat lets out a great sigh of relief and sinks down into a relaxing evening.

Friends, pancakes and Murdoch.

1. With it being half term, there's been a lot of children's programmes on the radio. This morning, they played I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends by the White Stripes. Its one of those songs that puts a smile on my face and the effect is intensified when I hear it by chance.

2. We make pancakes -- it's Shrove Tuesday. With pancakes, the first few are always a mess, and then they start to come right. 

3. The first episode of the new season of Murdoch -- it's a detective series set in 19th century Toronto. Murdoch finds himself across the Atlantic in Bristol suffering from Amnesia -- and, more pressingly, two murderous pursuers.

Scarlet scarf, advice and the step.

No weekly round-up this week -- I'm a bit overwhelmed with work. I really missed reading through your posts on Sunday.

1. To see Nick from a long way off because his scarlet alpaca scarf stands out.

2. There is a fat old Household Management book in our kitchen. It gets pulled out and consulted all the time -- the reaction usually being "What the hell is sweetbreads?" and "Where on earth do you get hold of camphor?" and "There is no way on earth I'm boiling that." I go in for some information about making stock. In the summary points at the top it says: "Be careful about the amount of turnip used. A little bit of turnip goes a long way in flavouring."

3. Taking a firm step towards my dream of writing a script for a British science fiction or fantasy series by responding to a call for pitches from Big Finish -- the company that produces the Dr Who radio plays.

Found, patience and noodle soup.

1. I have held up the queue scrabbling through my bag and my pockets, but the lady behind me (she is wearing a scarlet coat and a diamante dragonfly brooch) shares my relief with kind words when I find my purse.

2. A little girl sits in a supermarket trolley. She is waiting patiently for the pink iced donut in a plastic bag on the seat next to her.

3. A dish of clear chicken soup with finely chopped vegetables (dots of carrot, threads of greens) and glutinous rice noodles.

Cutting, off school and bread.

Yesterday was a day of lateness and not being able to get my head round things. I put the podcast up yesterday hours after I posted: I forgot what day of the week it is. So if you missed it, please go and have a listen. I now have a revolting cold, and feel very sorry for myself, so perhaps that explains it all.

1. I am chatting on the phone to Louise, and she says: "I've just noticed, that plant you gave me has flowered." That plant is a cutting from a pot plant she gave me. I now have three, but they've never bloomed for me.

2. In the pub, there are three children behind the bar -- they've come to work with mum because of the snow. "That'll be one fifty, love" she says to me. "One fifty, love," whispers the smallest child. They giggle, and she sends them all back upstairs.

3. I was late making the bread, so I have to cut it for supper within minutes of taking it out of the breadmaker. Hot air escapes from the crust and scalds my fingers. The kitchen smells of new bread.

First snow, hot potato and Christmas show.

1. I come out of the bookshop and fragments of snow are falling. At first I think it must be fake, blown from a display somewhere, because no-one else is reacting. But then two women pass me and I overhear: "Is it snowing? It's snowing, isn't it." I walk home on light feet with a huge smile on my face.

2. Taking a hot baked potato out of the oven.

3. I go to see A Christmas Carol at Trinity. It's a very spare production with a cast of eight playing multiple parts, but it's very cleverly done. A lot of the 'scenery' is created using a Greek-style chorus. The words are all Dickens', too, which is wonderful, particularly if you've recently read the book. Afterwards, I tell Caroline (who saw it the day before for reviewing purposes) that I wouldn't have minded seeing it all over again. She agrees.

White towels, man with a flan and candlelight.

Some natural history advice from Den -- I love the idea of queen bees sleeping away their pregnancy and waking up in the spring ready to found a dynasty. Ruth marvels at the rainbow colours in a bubble. Both Sweetpea's Garden and Cherry Red write about non-genetic parenting. Lynn shares the story behind her vintage Santa statue. And poor Louisa has to make the best of a bad cold.

1. I put out our new white wedding towels. They are so soft and so fluffy and so clean that it seems wicked to use them to dry myself.

2. Several days ago,Nick declared his intention to make a flan. He shuts himself away in the kitchen and soon the flat starts to smell of cheese and pastry and other savoury things.

3. I like to light a few candles for the supper table.

Doughball, can't wake up and my evening.

1. Dough bumbles round the breadmaker pan like a stout creature in an exercise ball.

2. The butcher is alarmed and bemused by his slowness. "I just want to put my head down and have a 10-minute kip." I tell him that I think that's a reasonable response to this sort of greyish day, when it doesn't really get light. He smiles and says he supposes it is.

3. I'd forgotten football night -- that means for me a hot bath and a good book (Whitechapel, a novel about a Victorian thug forced to play detective against Jack the Ripper).

Long light, jam turnover and soda.

Three Beautiful Things weekly round-up

• Two posts about first snow: A Journal of Days and Glimpses of Grace; while Louisa meets a lady at the chip shop who must content herself with a snow substitute.
• Aisha eats a pomegranate unadorned for the first time.
• Plutarch opens up a whole new world of perfumes, and is unable to resist buying a second apple.
  
• Mary Loves appears to be raising a junior 3BTer with a good eye for sunsets.
  

If you 3BT regularly, please let me know -- I love reading other people's beautiful things.

1. In the middle of the morning, I go out to the bins, and stand astonished (rubbish in my hand) at the golden winter light and long shadows.

2. He makes a jam turnover with the leftover pastry and marks it with our initials. At teatime, I get ticked off for picking the wrong half.

3. Last thing at night, to pour some soda crystals down the sink to keep the drains sweet. I like to break up the lumps in the powder through the plastic bag.

The tip-off, is it ready and the warning.

1. The man at the job centre says: "A wink's as good as a nod to a blind horse, if you know what I mean." And I do.

2. I like pushing skewer into a cake to see if it's done - the crust on top resists, and then it slips into the soft crumb.

3. My back registers a protest at the cold weather, a month of missed yoga sessions and long hours of writing and medical secretary practice. I spend time stretching and relaxing. It feels great.

The choice, soup and game on.

1. In the bakery, listening to the girls behind me deciding which cake they would like to take back to the office. "I couldn't eat a whole one of those. I'd have to cut it in half." "I'll have one, but for later."

2. A pan of orange vegetables (pumpkin and carrot) cooking for a wintery soup.

3. Nick is very pleased with himself because has bought a new game. When I get home, he has spread all the maps out out on the floor. On one of them, the British Empire is still pink. "There are more than a thousand counters," he says. He's anticipating a happy evening of pressing them out and neatening the rough edges.

Cake, carwash and parsnips.

1. A text message from Rosey reports: "I made a very special cake today. It was so big I had to make it in the washing-up bowl." She's talking about our wedding cake!

2. We pass a drive where a man is washing one side of a car. On the other side, two tiny blonde children dressed in matching raincoats help out with sandcastle buckets of water. They are not much taller than the wheels they are scrubbing.

3. My parsnips have welded themselves to the bottom of the pan. "I'm never putting honey on them again. They're sweet enough as they are." He says: "You always say that, and they always taste so good with honey."