Migrants, godfather and parsnips.

1. The piles of leaves in the park (I saw the groundsman with the leaf blower on Friday) might be herds of shaggy creatures migrating so slowly that it's impossible to see them move without a time lapse camera.

2. Tim and Rachel come for tea -- we have an important question to ask Tim. Since it's his fault that Alec is here at all, we hope he will stand as godfather. He is very pleased, and says yes. We've also asked my brother, and Nick's boss Charlotte has agreed to be godmother, so whatever befalls Alec in the future, he'll have a selection of wiser heads than ours to turn to.

3. Nick's honey roast parsnips.

Late riser, greeting and my work.

1. I get up before Alec and do a few chores before he wakes.

2. While pushing the pram round the park I am smiling so much at the thought of Alec that a boy on a scooter smiles back and says hallo.

3. I realise that there is nothing of Alec that has not come out of me -- 50 per cent of his genetic material, vitamin K and Infacol notwithstanding.

Hidden talent, not again and fast potatoes.

1. "You know you can click this lever and your front wheels will swivel, don't you," says the registrar, once Alec is a proper person. She kneels down (in her respectful, ceremonial black trousers) and shows us. We have been perambulating around for three weeks quite unaware that we had swivelling wheels. "It makes a real difference to the handling," says Nick.

2. The park is running and gurgling with streaming rainwater. Our shoes are damp (although we've avoided walking in puddles), and so is the bag of books and certificates from the register office (although I held it tight against myself all the way home). We shut the front door and promise we are not going out again.

3. "Seven minutes," says Nick. This is the time it took him to walk to the chippie, buy chips and mushy peas, and come home again.

Clear the way, on the move and room at the inn.

Love this story from the BBC about a train conductor who was both compassionate and not a jobsworth.

1. The park keepers have cleared the ice from almost all the paths in The Grove and in Calverley Rec.

2. I am lying in the bath. Nick brings me a single chocolate on one of the best plates. He stays to watch Baby Badger moving my bump around.

3. Nick rings the birthing centre to check they will take me if it all kicks off on Christmas Day. The midwife tells him that she likes a Christmas Day baby: "It means more publicity for us." We can but hope.

Bare earth, a comfort and some gifts.

1. The park keepers are clearing the beds in the park. The bare brown earth is as pleasing as the bright bedding plants. Later, I come across them doing the same outside the town hall. The planting was ornamental vegetables. Someone has put the red stemmed chard to one side, perhaps for their dinner.

2. I get myself a muffin and a hot chocolate and write a few thank you cards.

3. She comes round with a book I might like, a deep red cyclamen and (as someone who has been there, done that) lots and lots of reassurance about work.

Field trip, sun and off the path.

I have a short piece about biscuits up at Encounters with Remarkable Biscuits.

1. The park at 10.45am is full of girls from a school on the other side of town. They push into the ladies, turning sideways to accomodate their shoulder bags. They are all coatless on a chilly morning, as if they have suddenly been called outside for a moment, and the wet grass soaks their white canvas shoes. They cluster at the top of the hill, looking hungrily down before running shrieking and sliding into the dip. Their teacher (hat, scarf, coat, boots, clipboard) calls out: "If I can hear your voice, it's too loud." They modulate back: "Sorry, Miss."

2. Light comes through the round door glass and through the warm orange curtain. Indoor sun.

3. I leave the path and walk on the grass because I want to shuffle through wet beech leaves.

Castle, back in time and the moon.

1. In St James' Park, looking back up to Horse Guards Parade and the Ministry of Defence behind. It looks like a fairy tale castle. I think that the MoD has King Arthur and his knights sleeping in one of the towers, in case of national need.

2. To come off a hot, bright shopping street in London and walk down a narrow lane that looks as if it hasn't change since 1780.

3. The moon (white silver and shaped like an egg) has been peering round clouds and through the window of the train all the way home.

Free fruit, dog having fun and the allotments.

1. The wild raspberries are ripe: all the sweeter for being free.

2. In the park, a strange-looking dog (it has the head and legs of a terrier, but a barrel-like body that makes it look like a well-fed piglet) runs up the path, looking like its having the time of its life.

3. I like to walk along the path through the middle of the allotments, and see how other people's vegetables are doing; and to admire the ingenuity of their cold frames made from old french windows; and to watch their CD bird scarers flickering in the sun.

Exercise, gas tower afternoon and school's out.

1. Walking to work on a cool bright day and arriving warm and loose-muscled.

2. I like seeing the gas tower sunk down in its lattice of girders, with the bright white sky behind.

3. A tight ring of teenagers crouches in the grass like a black mushroom. A malfunctioning lighter makes one of them leap up yelping.

Let go, light in the snow and my marks.

1. Your over-excited spaniel wants to run off the lead into the snow with your over-excited son.

2. Tonight, light has frozen into the snow: in the Grove children are still building snowmen; and the shouts of sledging and snowboarding boys ring about the common.

3. I put my prints in untrodden snow leading up to our door.

Hanging around, windy day and comic.

1. Teenagers, wearing no coats, lined up on sunny benches in the park.

2. Coming out of the house when the sun is shining and a fresh wind is buffetting the street corners.

3. Hearing Nick laugh at QI.

To do, message and black dogs.

1. Today a task that calls for steady, plodding concentration and no creativity is very welcome.

2. I find a message from Nick on my phone in which he comments that soon he won't have to ring me because I'll be living with him.

3. Two large and enthusiastic black dogs wallow and splollop in the scummy end of the lake stirring up mud and raising a stench of rotting leaves.

Welcome, my place and messing about in boats.

1. I arrive at a new job and am handed a welcome pack full of forms, style sheets and supplies (including Post-it notes!) that I might need. Among the papers is a card from my beauticians at Serenity, just round the corner from where I live. At my last appointment, I'd mentioned that a had a first day coming up, and they'd remembered -- wasn't that kind of them!

2. A new desk with deep drawers where I can keep all the things that make the working day easier to enjoy.

3. At home time, PaulV says if I wait, I can have a lift. He takes me home the long way round, by Dunorlan Lake, where we hire a boat and drift around gossipping, trailing our toes in the water, and enjoying the quiet at the end of a long, hot day.

Pink whizz, shooting up and shout and shake.

I humbly offer a dancing street cleaner which might brighten your day.

1. Making a smoothie from a banana and some strawberries.

2. On my way back to the park, where the local primary school is celebrating the end of term, I follow a girl who must be one of the leavers. Strong and fine, she is shooting out of her blue-and-white-striped dress in all directions. It is not hard to imagine myself as a reception infant again, looking up at her with awe and wondering if I would ever be so tall.

3. It's like the Mary Celeste -- a bench, a jacket, half a bottle of rum, some beer cans. Then we spot a drunken sixth former crouched in the bushes. I think of Tom Reynolds' 'Shout and Shake' rule. I talk to him, and when he doesn't respond, I hesitate. I am afraid to find him stone cold, or aggressive. But I am more afraid of being the person who walked on by, so I call louder and give his arm a shove. He doesn't move. We go and ask to borrow a phone from the circuit training group. Their first aider comes back to look at the lad. By the time, we get there, he's awake and lying on his side. 'You all right? Just drunk?'
'Drunk as a... a... I'm drunk.' He gives us a huge smile.
We decide he's fine, and the first aider says they'll keep an eye on him.

Six weeks, up front and a place to go.

1. Nick tells me 'Six weeks' and we smile to think of all the changes that will have happened in that time. The new bathroom will be in; the kitchen floor laid; and I will have 23m of shelves on the left of the fireplace.

2. We sit right under the stage at the Tunbridge Wells Mela so PaulV can take pictures. In front of us, little girls of all colours and sizes copy the Bangladeshi dancers, and children rest their chins on the stage, entranced. Here's Plutarch's take on it over at Now's the Time. And you can see what Anonymous Bosch made of it at in three posts at Street Photography in Tunbridge Wells: part 1, part 2 and part 3.

3. In the evening park, two sturdy teenagers sit on the swings drinking bottles of beer.

Leave-taking, it goes this way and girl's night out.

1. I kiss Nick goodbye at the station -- letting our fingertips slip apart -- and set off home to begin my working day.

2. Sitting on a bench in the sun, I realise that I can flip my A6 notebook sideways for a whole new writing experience.

3. Celebrating Louise's birthday by watching the gloriously silly Mamma Mia! and eating icecream.

Campaign for real bread, embrace and a family.

1. We are low on bread again, and I complain to Katie that there is nowhere at this end of town to buy real bread -- unless I am prepared to trail through the entire supermarket, or buy olive / raisin / rosemary artisanal knot bread from a deli at £4 a pop. But when I run into the newsagents after milk, among the plastic sliced bread I find two proper loaves.

2. I am standing chatting to a friend and her little girl puts her arms around my leg and gives me a hug.

3. Hurrying through the park to writing I see Matt, Anna and small Oli enjoying ice creams on a balmy summer night. I stop to say hi just as Anna offers Oli a lick that lights up his face.

Pop, falling with style and escape.

To anyone thinking about posting a spam comment -- don't waste your time. I see comments before they go live, and if they're not relevant, they get deleted. If you want to advertise in a post or on the front page, please get in touch and I'll tell you how much it costs.

1. Breaking the skin of a tomato with the tip of a sharp knife.

2. A park full of people watching unlikely flying machines throwing themselves into the Serpentine.

3. In the Grove a tiny person in a green jumper escapes from its mother and, shouting 'Da da da da', runs towards the stream of people coming up from the station.

Clapping, potatoes and aging.

1. As we drink coffee in the garden, we hear a burst of applause from the cricket.

2. Opening the potato sack, I discover a bag of Jersey Royals smelling of earth and summer.

3. The evening park is crowded with teenagers. It's as if the babies and toddlers from the afternoon have all grown up.

Mark-up, literature bugs and a game.

1. Marking a piece of black cloth with tailor's chalk.

2. Sarah Salway messages me to ask if I want to be a book fairy -- if so, come to the park now, with five books. Well, of course I do, so we spend twenty minutes dropping literature in the park.

3. A friend holds her daughter while we chat in the park. First one blue wellie falls to the ground. I pick it up. Then another blue wellie falls. I pick it up. Then the first blue wellie falls again, this time accompanied by a cheeky giggle.