Red coat, quality of light and in the old days.

1. Seeing a friend's bright red coat at the far end of the street.

2. Yellow gold light has hit the building opposite -- I feel as if I have been greeted with a huge smile.

3. We go to a lecture on what the Weald would have been like in the Cretaceous, when Tunbridge Wells Museum's iguanadon would have been alive. Swampy, apparently. The lecturer puts up a picture of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and says rather sadly: "I've never been there, but I'm told that's what it would have been like." I have been there -- so all comes to life for me. I can imagine the wet heat, and the forests of horsetails growing half in, half out of the water where the dinosaurs come down to drink.

We love the milkman, squall and felafel

1. Oh milkman, we wake up to find that in the small hours, you placed on our doorstep a pot of yoghurt and some milk for breakfast.

2. As we are climbing over a stile, a squall blows up the valley. The sky darkens, the wind gets up, and the cold rain blows in our faces. We are so surprised that we stand there like idiots for a moment, before taking cover in the lea of an oak.

3. Flattening a felafel and jamming it into a hot pitta.

Deer, hill and the other half.

1. The watchful deer are lying in the shade flicking their ears.

2. I like climbing a hill just because I want to see what's at the top. It's a piece of open ground, dry grass and parkland trees, a fragment of distant downs and a peep of the big house on the other side of the hill.

3. In Sevenoaks, mothers walk with teenage sons who look like princes.

Stay green, in the shade and sweets.

I've woken up my old blog Once Around the Park. 30-word accounts of a daily walk along the same route.

1. I like this time of year, when it is hot, but still green.

2. I am always afraid to put the shading into my pictures -- it's hard with portraits because the directional shading I'm so fond of looks like wrinkles, or sunburn. But when the teacher warns us that profile pictures can end up looking flat, I take a deep breath and give it a go. At the end of the class, he praises the depth of our portraits.

3. Sharing a box of mithai with Nick -- we're lucky enough to have a brilliant exotic supermarket in Tunbridge Wells (The Spice Store on Grosvenor Road), and a bite or two of an Indian sweet make a good change to our usual Jaffacakes.

Yellow paper, out and home now.

1. I make myself feel better by drawing rude pictures on sticky notes of villains in the ridiculousness at work.

2. At lunchtime, we go out. Away from the office and into the woods and fields, where we would rather have been right from the start.

3. Coming home -- the door is open to get some air circulating round our abandoned flat -- stripping off my boots and coat, washing my hands and starting on supper.

Getting out of here, windmill and copper mine.

1. We strike out up the road, independent with a rucksack, lunch, map and water.

2. We stand under a wind turbine and hearing its whomph-hiss, whomph-hiss. I feel very small and vulnerable.

3. The copper mine is like a filthy fingerprint on the green land. Standing in the dead land (filthy ponds in the middle of the sliced off mountain top) we can see in all directions green fields between the slag heaps.

4. A slice of gooey chocolate cake. Its butter icing is gritty with sugar.

Privilege, wings and leftover.

1. He excuses turning his clients to face the room rather than the view because, being a close-up worker, he needs to stretch his eyes occasionally. And, he adds 'I'm here all day and you're not.'

2. I'm almost afraid of the way my inky crow has come to life.

3. 'I ate that plate of leftover cottage pie you left on the table. I'm sorry, and it was delicious. We're having that again.'

The maze, fishers and a stop.

1. We climb up to Dover Drop Redoubt. We walk round the top of the outer wall, and then as we are about to go back down to the town, we discover an entrance, a long canyon that looks like a scene from Labyrinth. Cool brick walls rise above us and there are ferns at our feet. We half expect to turn and to find the entrance vanished.

2. In the marina, cormorants bend their wings into s-shapes and hunch their shoulders to get some sun on their wing feathers.

3. The rail replacement bus services runs rigidly to the station at the bottom of town, and to the station we must go, even though the route passes near our home at the top of town. But another passenger cheekily asks for a stop at the top of town. The driver (who as we were boarding said 'I don't want to see your tickets. I don't care.') complies. We spill out gladly into the twilight. 'Cheers,' says the other passenger. 'That's made my day. Finally.'

Abandoned, dogs and hack.

1. Birds nests in winter trees.

2. Bill's dogs Gwen and Sweep. Gwen is small and wriggly; Sweep is more sedate and coming up for retirement. He waits patiently when Bill goes out of sight, but Gwen runs around looking for him.

3. Using a bill hook to hack at the base of a hawthorn branch so that it lies flat to make a hedge.

Old acres, small and white and division.

1. The four-acre vegetable garden is empty -- just a walled field with a few faithful espaliered trees still spreading themselves across the bricks.

2. A drift of snowdrops in a wood.

3. Mark, who is not supposed to eat dessert, has a treacle sponge on his birthday. He cuts it up carefully and eats each piece slowly.

A good morning, planting and ground cover.

1. On a morning when the sun is raising steam from the ground; wet leaves shine too bright to see; and a crust of frost crunches underfoot, Diane remarks: 'It's good to be alive.'

2. Pushing a spade into the soil and pushing it back and forth to make a slit trench in which to plant a tree.

3. An area which was this morning a mess of trampled bracken and scrawny briars is now planted with stakes and tree guards, each containing a sapling.

Chooks, leaf and lost bridge.

1. Barnevelder chickens scratching in a pen. A mud path is worn round the edge, where Gwen the sheepdog has been rounding them up. I ask Bill the warden about the chickens, and he says: 'They're lovely when the light hits them.' I look again and spot the peacock irridescence, and that each feather has a brown chevron.


2. An ivy leaf burnt to a charred flake has an electric blue sheen.


3. Among the trees covering the spoil heaps at Ticknall lime yards is an old bridge that once carried the tramway. Through the arch, I can see the turquoise water of a flooded quarry.

In the mud, rats and Jane Austen.

1. A large puddle in a huge field. A very small person stands in the mud at the edge guarded by a large German shepherd dog. The father returns from the dog bin and carefully lifts the small person out of the mud, twisting them slightly so their boots don't get left behind.

2. We stand on a bridge over the stream connecting the duckpond with the lake and watch rats appearing and disappearing along runways in the grass and tunnels in the bank.

3. Katie gets in at 9pm while I am deep in a book and says that there is a new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility about to start; and that it has an exciting woodchopping scene that rivals Mr Darcy-climbing-out-of-the-lake-in-his-wet-shirt. My book falls forgotten down the side of my bed.

The papers, our garden and this is where I go.

This is a public information message from Steve Stack, author of It is Just You, Everything's Not Shit.

I recently started a blog and wrote a book with the somewhat less than beautiful title It Is Just You, Everything's Not Shit but lots of beautiful things have happened as a result. Here are three of them:

1. Meeting Oliver Postgate, the creator of Bagpuss, Clangers and Ivor the Engine. Still going strong in his eighties, he was one hero that did not disappoint in the flesh.

2. Receiving a wooden chest of sweets from the lovely people at ww.aquarterof.com. It was like opening a gateway to my childhood - flying saucers, sherbet pips, space dust and bucketloads more.

3. Hearing from lost friends who have stumbled across the book in shops and emailed me. Some very welcome blasts from the past.

The book is available from Waterstones and Amazon or from It Is Just You, Everything's Not Shit.

1. Sitting in bed with Nick and the Sunday papers.

2. Finding a secret garden and imagining that it was there solely for our benefit. It is arranged in concentric circles around a pond where sedges have dipped into the water, forming hoops with their reflections.

3. As we go over Ashdown Forest, the taxi driver says that if he has to wait around, he sometimes comes up here with a flask of coffee and a sandwich.

Honey, carp and words.

1. On the breakfast bar, a piece of golden honeycomb is flanked by two silver knives.

2. Standing on a jetty watching carp kiss the water below us.

3. Tucked between the pages of my new Moomin book, I find again the gift tag that Nick up on the wrapping.

4. The view of the grey hotel among autumn trees on the other side of the valley.

5. Slices of tender, pink venison surrounded by a chilli-chocolate sauce.

6. Coming back to our room after dinner and finding that bed that was rumpled from our afternoon nap has been made and turned down; and the towels and bathrobes that we left strewn around the room have been carefully hung up.

Mist, last of the sunny days and kitten.

1. A frosty morning with mist lying in hollows.

2. We celebrate Neil's birthday by sitting in the sun with a beer.

3. Bobby explains the awesome power of his new kitten. 'Girls come to see the kitten, not me.'

Adrenalin, the tribe and zip.

Work took us to a treetop adventure at Go Ape.

1. Feeling excited about something, but not feeling sick. I took courage from the fact that Fenella, who is scared of heights, had done it and enjoyed it. The first real course was terrifying and left me wondering if I could bear to do the rest. But the second course saw me sauntering across a single log 30 feet up in the canopy, and suddenly I felt a lot better about it all.

2. I liked seeing flashes of the others ahead of us on the course and hearing them whoop and shriek and cheer and encourage. I loved seeing Oli and Doug romping across obstacles; and hearing Hilary checking that Emma and Charlotte were properly attached.

3. Going down the last zip wire and seeing all my colleagues waiting at the far end, Doug standing on the fence, Charlotte brushing the wood chips off herself, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named with his camera in hand.

Green sticks, cords and shelter.

1. The smell of hazel withies -- these are branches twisted until they are as strong and as flexible as wire and can be used to secure a bundle of sticks. They smell sharp, fresh and sappy. I spot Johnny sniffing the demonstration model as it is passed round.

2. Learning new knots and the stories that go with them. 'This one is used by Siberian goat herders because they don't have to take their gloves off for long when they are making it. Wave to your friend over here... if there's a triangle there you're doing it right...' 'Round this one twice then both once...'

3. Building a shelter by piling armfuls of leafmould and bracken on to a frame of sticks. It forms a dark little cave large enough for two that blends perfectly with the woods.

Hay bales, greeting and family life.

1. The hay has been cut and baled. I like standing at a gate and looking up a hill to see the huge round bales standing against the sky line.

2. On my walk, I hear a miaow and a tinkle. A slender tortoise shell cat comes running across a garden to see what I am up to.

3. Another diner spots us gazing into each other's eyes. -- 'Don't do that: you'll end up with children.' He indicates his clutch of tweenies sitting at the table behind us. We laugh and he pays his bill. As he leaves the restaurant he adds: 'Don't mind me. Having children was the best thing that ever happened to me.'

Flock, clean air and new dad.

1. The sound of sheep running down the road. Their hooves make a soft clicking sound, which multiplied by 100 makes quite a stampede.

2. Walking down the lane after a rainstorm to enjoy new-washed air and sparkling hedges.

3. Katie's brother proudly taking his day-old son off to change his nappy. 'He's just exploded.' Welcome to the world, small red wrinkled Rory. You're a bit early and this place must seem puzzling, bright and noisy; but you've got plenty of kick, and you're very much loved, so things aren't all that bad.