Cotton wool clouds, crickets and early.

1. Today, town is looking particularly lovely from the top of Mount Ephraim. Great cumulo nimbus clouds scatter sun and shade across the roofs and parks.

2. Crickets -- someone has wound the hillside up and it is hopping round in circles like a clockwork toy.

3. Nick comes in early and sees my computer face. We go for a walk. When we get home, everything is all right again.

Bees, in the sun and compost bin.

1. Bees bob against the window. Bok. Bok. Bok.

2. At lunchtime, to stretch out my legs in the sun and read for a while.

3. On a hot day, a week before it will be emptied, the compost bin smells of conifer branches.

The sun reveals all, the garden and magnolia.

1. The sun in the yard reveals secrets. Midges dancing in the morning. A thread of cobweb drifting skywards.

2. To mix up bright blue plant food in a watering can and glug it on to the pots and troughs (and the former fridge salad drawer) that are giving me so much pleasure.

3. Thick magnolia petals lie in drifts in the courtyard -- and there's more to come.

Work, arachnids and coming to help.

1. I interview the director of a play for a feature. It feels good to do some work knowing that I'm going to get paid.

2. I like seeing all the pea-sized spiders this year. There is one on our porch, one in the flowerbed opposite (invisible until it drizzles) and one on a traffic sign that I pass on my way to my secretarial course. I wonder if they are starting to recognise us.

3. I start the washing up. The tinny TV cheering in the sitting room stops abruptly, and Nick comes in to help.

Ladybird, whip round and fishmonger.

My recipe is featured on Tomato Lover today.

1. A ladybird -- glossy red -- sits cool and calm in the deep green leaves of a succulent on the kitchen windowsill.

2. I like to run the vacuum cleaner around the flat and see the carpets brighten.

3. I walk down to the new fishmongers in town because I fancy a fried fillet of sole for supper. They have a crate of marsh samphire -- which looks very much like little caterpillars to me, but makes an intersting pre-dinner snack. The sole was delicious, too -- crispy on the outside and lemony creamy in the middle.

A dress, butterfly and back in time.

1. I like helping Katie to choose a dress for a wedding which we are both going to.

2. A butterfly -- a black shadow against the sky -- flicks in and out of existence.

3. I like watching Sue Perkins and Giles Coren in Supersizers Eat... This episode they are being Romans, and have to eat udders, ducks' tongues and testicles.

Dress accordingly, work and spotlight.

1. Putting on warm weather clothes after a few chilly days.

2. I find a job ad that piques my interest -- it's part-time, and editorial, working on interesting subject matter for an amazing organisation.

3. Shade falls through the leaves in smudges and splotches. A brown butterfly sits for a moment on a splash of sunlight and is illuminated.

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 end is coming, pet care and broken promises

1. There is not a great deal to do at work -- we're mainly sitting around waiting for the end. I'm thoroughly enjoying killing time playing my Nintendo DS.

2. The caterpillar in the roses has left droppings on the table. Nick suggests we consider getting it a caterpillar litter tray.

3. We tune in to the BBC's Springwatch, enticed by the promise of badgers that never materialise.We are consoled by the sight of a stoat rolling its prey, a dead rabbit about twice its size; and parent birds cramming insects into the gaping beaks of their young; and peregrine falcons taking their first flights off the tower of Chichester Cathedral; and hairy seahorses floating in eel grass.

Larva, chocolate spread and mouthful.

How Publishing Really Works is one of my favourite writing blogs for its wise advice. Jane marked her first birthday on Sunday with a blog pitch party. Go over and make some new friends.

1. There is a caterpillar on one of our roses. He emerges from a den deep in the scented heart of a Gertrude Jekyll. He is mottled and splotted in handsome python colours. I try to tempt him off with a piece of lettuce -- but judging by the nibbled petals, he prefers flowers to leaves.

2. Chocolate spread sandwiches.

3. As we are leaving the house, he puts a big piece of toffee in my mouth.

Irises, aeronauts and a walk.

1. This garden is flying irises -- the blue of deep sea and the yellow of suns drawn in wax crayon.

2. The swifts are louder than the engine of the bus.

3. In the middle of the day, to walk under warm air ticking with crickets in a tangled field starred with buttercups.

Adornment, stories and on the march.

1. Leaves copper plated, smeared and sketched with blues and greens and oranges.

2. Chatting to stallholders at a craft fair. I hear stories about ocarinas, am complimented on my voice, overhear a description of a green man, discover how flowers end up in paper weights and discover that the metal leaf man got his machine from someone who was emigrating.

3. Watching ants going about their tiny business up and down the leg of a bench.

Myrmacology, pink and loaf.

1. Watching ants at work in the ant farm of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

2. A pan of pink bubble and squeak -- we made it with red cabbage.

3. Watching my banana bread rising in the oven.

Sweet nothings, blue goo and demob happy.

1. I turn down breakfast in favour of an extra fifteen minutes of having sweet nothings whispered in my ear.

2. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named has ants to put in his ant farm. We gave him the tank full of blue goo for his birthday, but the ants had to be ordered separately. He puts them in, and we spend the day checking to see if they've started burrowing yet.

3. I am what my boss calls 'demob happy' because it's the end of Friday and I have a whole week off.

Camp, golden insects and zoom zoom.

1. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named crawls into my tent and then turns round to stick his head out of the door.

2. Walking under trees and seeing flies with the sun on their wings in a shaft of light.

3. Katie rides on our trolley to bust through the automatic doors at the supermarket.

Little houses, fire and chocolate.

1. Caddis fly larva cases made from plant stalks. The back end is made from tiny fibres layered in a hexagon pattern.

2. Icecream pudding decorated with flaming cocktail umbrellas.

3. Finding an Easter egg in my shoe.

Insects, fair maids and refreshment.

1. A fly on the outside of the window because it's a sign of warmer weather to come.

2. Pots of snowdrops at the farmers' market.

3. Gin with a slice of lime.

Spotty, green leaves in winter and glorious mud.

I am proud to announce that I have completed the last part of the Tunbridge Wells Circular Walk.

Southborough quarter -- 30 December 2005 -- 8.25 miles
Sussex quarter -- 3 June 2006 -- 15 miles
Pembury quarter -- 10 November 2006 -- 13 miles
Speldhust quarter -- 1 January 2006 -- 10 miles

1. A flock of 16-spot ladybirds. Almost every fence post for half a kilometer has a little cluster of these tiny insects that look like varnished clockwork toys.

2. We round the end of a wood and then I stop in surprise. 'Look!'

Rosey and my father look, and at first they don't see what has made me exclaim.

Then they see a 300-year-old oak tree in full leaf, bright and tender as if it was 1 May, not 1 January. It's an evergreen Lucombe oak, but the leaves are soft and fresh, not leathery and dark. My father says that if he had one in his garden, every Christmas he would deck the halls with boughs of oak.

3. Small boy in red wellies: mumble mumble psssp-psssp?
Father: I'm sure there will be mud, yes.
There is a fair bit of mud around. Particularly... well anywhere that isn't under concrete, actually. It creeps up our trousers and splashes on our faces and hands. And it squelches in a very satisfying way under our feet.

Lost and found, sophistication and cafe society.

1. Thinking we've lost our office spider, and then realising I'm looking out of the wrong bit of window.

2. Teasing Charlotte, our latest recruit, about working on a publication called Pooley's:
HWSNBN: Clare used to do Pooley's when she first arrived.
Me: Yeah, I remember you doing Pooley's in the corner of the old office.
HWSNBN: We all have to do Pooley's at some point.
Me: At certain times of year, there's piles of Pooley's all over the office.
Etc until we are laughing too much to go on.

3. Drinking hot chocolate in a cafe and writing a list of 50 things that make me happy.

Buzz, chackle and no more ice.

1. Leaning on a gate listening to the summer noises -- a distant aeroplane, voices from the garden over the road, seedpods clicking, a cricket at my feet and creatures buzzing at my head and then away again.

2. The whooping chuckle of a moorhen.

3. When I was young and had no sense I worked hard at defrosting the freezer, scraping away the ice with a spatula and a pan of hot water. Now I just open wide the door, put down a bowl and some clothes to catch the water and sit back with my book while the ice melts. I like the noise of the water dripping and the occasional clatter as a big chunk of ice falls through the shelves.