Three Beautiful Things

Three bloggers who are recording happy things -- Anisa writes about her time in Madrid ; words and pictures on Posterous by Imperfect Pages ; and Gillian over at Sky Blue Pinkish . 1. We wake up to Radio 3 playing Ae Fond Kiss , one of Robert Burns' love poems set to music. This is followed by the wedding march from Handel's Midsummer Night's Dream, which was our processional music. 2. Anna comes over to lunch. She brings a stone bead set with a tiny compass for Alec. "I think it might be a watch chain charm," she says. "It's for his cabinet of curiosities. With parents like you he's bound to have a cabinet of curiosities." I think it will also keep him pointing in the right direction, and I'm looking forward to helping him fill his cabinet. 3. I finish The Missing by Tim Gautreaux, which I have enjoyed thoroughly. He manages to make a sad and frightening subject luminous. A floorwalker who dreams of playing jazz is indirectly responsi...

1. A parcel for Alec: a knitted tanktop depicting a workmanlike digger, sent south by Nick's gaming friend Simon. 2. We pop into the Oxfam bookshop to show Alec to Sandra the manager, and get chatting to one of her volunteers who is a proud grandfather. "You can look at babies for hours," he says. I can only agree. 3. Shhh. One of my favourite moments of the day is when we lay the sleeping Alec in his moses basket and snuggle up together. He'll probably join us later in the night, but for now, it's just the two of us.

Drew has posted three beautiful things over at Panic I'm Nearly 30 . Do let me know if you write your own beautiful things -- despite all the upheavals, and my current obsession with one particular baby, I am still interested to hear the best things about people's days. 1. I like the way whenever my chiropractor does an even slightly painful adjustment (which is very rarely) she says: "Still speaking to me?" 2. The automatic doors flap open. And shut. She stands just out of the rain hunched into her collar. Then her head pops up and she sets off, trailing a wisp of cigarette smoke the exact colour of her long blue coat. 3. A very wet and miserable postman brings a parcel during lunch. It's addressed to Nick, and he won't open it until he's finished eating, by which time I am nearly dying from curiosity. It's a gift from his work -- a hat box of bits for a baby boy, including a blue fleece blanket, a rattling rabbit, and a tiny pair of shoes.

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.

1. When my glasses are smeary (everything has a blue-grey mist to it), to clean the lenses between my thumb and finger with washing-up liquid. To rinse them under the hot tap. Then to put them back on, still warm. 2. Low cloud today. The sky begins abruptly -- before the houses have even finished. 3. Nick brings home a bag of Easter chocolates from his boss.

1. Waking up to see a bit of daylight prying itself through the gap in the curtains. Morning work feels like a light bath, and it makes me feel like getting things done. 2. Nick's sister Sarah rings to tell me to expect a plant. A couple of hours later, a man comes to the door. "I've got a very large ivy for you." It's a cone, about the height of a child, and it's perfect for the collection of pots along the sunny wall. 3. It's satisfying to pick off and throw away the fat that has floated to the top of a stew taken from the fridge.

I'm quite fond of Eat The Seasons, a website that lists each week some seasonal foods. Today, they've suggested chestnuts, and the feature starts with what looks very much like a 3BT list -- I'm sure it's not, but I thought I'd share it with you. 1. One of the flowers on my white potted azalea has a flash of shocking pink in one petal. I wonder at the colour locked up in the plant's genes and the chance errors that allowed it to be expressed. Ain't life grand. 2. On his second visit of the day (he came yesterday, too,) I tell the delivery man that it's wedding presents. He smiles broadly. 3. I am taking enormous pleasure in the oak tree that I can see from the desk. It covers fully a quarter of my view, and has ponderously changed from green to yellow to ochre. I expect to wake up any day now and see an even more dramatic transformation.

1. She recognises me by my snail brooch from Sheer Sumptuosity -- it was Ruth who co-owns this company far away in York, who introduced us down here in Tunbridge Wells. She has for me a box containing an electric blue damselfly brooch, which I can't wait to wear. 2. I am learning the bones of the skeleton for my medical secretary course. I like making up mnemonics for each limb. 3. After the show, we sit in the bar. The actor takes the sofa and we shyly pull up chairs all around him. Caroline says: "No-one's sitting next to George, and that's a shame." She sits down on the other half of the sofa to even up the circle. PS: Ruth is a dedicated 3BTer, so take a look at her blog .

For those who wondered what a fascinator is, it's a sort of small and whimsical hat -- it just so happens that Dan Holloway, the writer responsible for The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes, recently interviewed a maker of outlandish and wonderful fascinators . 1. In the Saturday morning sun, a Polish man covers the grimey balustrade around his tiny front garden with clean white paint. A line of brushes and a pint glass of juice stands at the other end; and an unassuming radio plays quiet music. 2. With my tea comes one of the packets of Rococo sea salt chocolate that Nick treked all the way to Marylebone to buy for me on Friday. It's gorgeously smooth, and surprises with crisp fragments of salt. 3. I like stirring up a saucepan of boiling water (salt and vinegared) until a whirlpool forms. I like dropping eggs into it so the whites squirl out like Miss Haversham's wedding dress. I also like cutting into the shrouded golden yolk and seeing it run out all over the toast...

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.

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.

1. The low morning sun shines through stained glass purple petals of rabbit's ears lavender. 2. A rainbow smudge in the clouds -- sundog. 2-and-a-half. A pair of male blackbirds disagree about their boundary. They fly at each other, tails fanned, beaks wide. Then one crouches low, small in his submission. But it's all a trick -- he's up again, stout with outrage. 3. There is a white chocolate and blueberry cookie waiting for me when I get home. Nick says it's from the Moonwalk team at his work.

1. The giant hornbeam tree that shades the street says -- and the saplings in the hedge agree -- that it's time to start putting out pleated leaves. 2. The whole two miles home is out of the sun -- except where a street heading west lets the red-gold light through to warm the baptist chapel. 3. A parcel comes, a book which one of you readers thinks I would like. It's about affirmations, and it reminds me (as do all your comments, and the growing list of followers) of all the good things I get from writing three beautiful things each day.

1. "That's very you," he says, and I change my mind about the dress I want. 2. She has made paneer from scratch for our supper -- cheese is a small kitchen miracle. 3. Saiya snuggles up to me as I read her a story about a haunted hotel. "Your arm is nice and soft."

1. We get up early to watch the half marathon runners go by. They're on the last two miles. Some of them look as if they're out for a stroll; others are running on determination alone. We see vest numbers in high 1,000s, and guess at numbers that way. It's fascinating to see all the different styles of running -- feet out this way, arms out that way. Head high, head forward. Eyes ahead or drawn to our clapping. 2. Nick's mother sends him back with a small pile of lacy handkerchiefs -- surplus her requirements, but not to mine. 3. I am called back from storyland by a plate with some biscuits on it.

Yesterday in the comments Den recommended some beautiful schernschnitte animation, which is well worth a look. Here are some films of Lotte Reiniger on YouTube. Thanks very much, Den. 1. We go into Noakes Department Store in search of clean lightpull cord and leave with a set of bathroom curtains. After climbing up and down the ladder, knotting and unknotting header tape and rearranging hooks, we step back to look. 'It feels like my bathroom now,' says Nick, and we notice that the echo has gone from the room. 2. Katie-who-I-used-to-live-with has been to Sweden . She brings me back the most wonderful bag of Moomin swag -- metal Christmas tree baubles, a romantic mug showing Moomin and the Snork Maiden, a tea towel, a tin tray and a bright orange birthday book (in Swedish) decorated with illustrations from the books. 3. Today has been a busy day for catching up with friends. We saw He-Who-Shall-Not-Be named for lunch; then Backgammon Andy and his girlfriend in the evening. Comi...

1. A second frosty day and every twig has a white fur coating. 2. At the market, the goats cheese man blows his fingers. The fishmongers hands are blue and red raw. I'm glad to be going home. 3. A Christmas present of a trip to the theatre, John Buchan's The 39 Steps . A cast of four chase a villainous German spy from London to Scotland via music hall and a shadow puppet show. On the playwriting course I did, we were often told that a script has more chance of being accepted if it will turn into a low-budget play. That might sound sad, but actually the challenge of working with a limited cast and simple (or non-existant) scenery inspires.

1. On the railings and in the hedges are cobwebs left behind by autumn but remembered by January's frost. 2. The street disappears into the fog, the horizon invisible but for a tree top in front of the misted over sun. 3. He brings flowers, stargazer lilies. They are fast asleep and shut up against the cold.

1. A large cup of hot chocolate. 2. Fenella brings me a parcel, a something that she's seen and decided that I MUST HAVE. It's The Dodo Pad Book of the Big Day . It's wonderfully approachable, so I won't be scared to scribble all over it and paste scruffy bits of paper into it. 3. In his latest TV series, Amazon , Bruce Parry returns to the Matis who visited a few years ago as part Tribe . He projects the film on to the lumpy log walls of the longhouse and is relieved to hear them laugh at all the bits showing him in pain, throwing up or running for the loo.

I have tagged most of the posts referring to Nick for those who wanted this. It's really not a narrative, as 3BT was never intended to be used as such. These posts are an unsorted bundle of unimportant and important moments in our relationship. Some turning points in the story are not there, because I never wrote about them. Here is a link to the first page of the list . The oldest posts are at the bottom of the page, and there is a link to the newer posts at the bottom of the page. 1. I am wearing a few strings of sandalwood beads that my parents brought me from India. Every so often, I can smell them, warm, musky and woody. 2. Splitting the threads and recombining them plumps them up and make the colours as rich as fruitcake. 3. Click by click, the house darkens.