Voice, last and hooked.

1. At the other end of the phone he says: "It's good to hear your voice."

2. There is one loaf of bread left in the bakers. I buy it.

3. We listen to Tartuffe on the radio -- it's a translation by Roger McGough in funny, current wordgamey verse. I am hooked from start to finish.

Occupied, examination and sky matters.

1. A book in one hand, a jam sandwich in the other.

2. Archie seizes my finger, puts it and several of his own into his mouth and gives the whole a good gumming.

3. I read a poem about clouds today in qarrtsiluni and turn my eyes to the sky. 'Did you feel rain?' someone wonders. 'No. Just looking.' And throughout the evening the conversation turns again and again to the changing sky. As we are leaving, Pete points to the west at grey clouds with orange bellies.

Green acres, nightwatch and after the storm.

1a. Today I am 30.

2a. There is a new post up at 12 Old Masters.

3a. My book proposal is one of six shortlisted in the Long Barn Books loo book competition. The results are posted on Susan Hill's blog. I'll hear on 30 June if it has won a publishing contract. I can't stop smiling.

4a. My new favourite riddle: 'A man in Egypt jumps into a river and shouts "I am not wet." Why?' Guesses in the comments, please, and I'll give the official answer tomorrow.

1. My brother has bought me half an acre of rainforest from Cool Earth. I love the idea that there's a little slip of land in Brazil that belongs to me, containing 22 mature hardwoods and thousands of species of insects. The purchase price will be used to pay for rangers from the area and to support income generating schemes that work with the forest rather than against it.

2. Hearing owls -- this reminds me of a line from a Siegfried Sassoon Poem called 'Middle-Ages':
'Owls in the wood were shrill
And the moon sank red.'
And a bat flies over my head, which makes me think of William Blakes' 'Augeries of Innocence':
'The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the soul that won't believe.'

3. Louise is taking me home after a cheery supper at her parents'. A thunder storm has rolled away and we find ourselves under a sky lit up by silent flashes of lightening. Louise says that she likes it when it is still warm after the rain. 'It's softened the air,' she says.

Peachy, to the door and what the Romans did for me.

1. The lovely egg-yolky colour of tinned peaches.

2. Getting my groceries delivered. It feels like shoplifting because so little effort is involved.

3. A.E. Houseman's On Wenlock Edge. It's one of my favourite poems. This is because it's very learnable -- each line has a little picture, and the rhyme scheme is simple a b a b. Also, it's about Romans and it deals with one of my favourite themes: things are pretty much the same as they ever were.

I had a bit of an epiphany about this during my GCSE year when I was studying some other poems about Romans in Latin. Catullus was a young man who wrote a series of very brilliant (and very rude, some of them) poems about a heart-rending love affair. I studied them, read them over, wrote about them and suddenly realised that Romans were not just exercises in a Latin primer; they had been human beings who quarrelled and fell in and out of love and teased their friends, just like me. Catullus also made me realise that there was something in this writing lark: he did his best to express things as handsomely and as pleasingly as possible, and 2,000 years later, people are still reading it.

Anyone else got a favourite poem about Romans?

Somewhere to put things, all the way home and just what I wanted.

1. My new trousers have massive pockets -- so big that I keep losing my handkerchief.

2. It is raining hard at home time and so Oli drives me to my front door.

3. When a book falls open on a poem that's been chasing round your head -- in this case, Ogden Nash's The Adventures of Isabel.

No. 7, taking to my heels and how we laughed.

1. The smell of No. 7 lippy, because it makes me feel as if I look beautiful.

2. The extra height from high heels.

3. Laughing at the poem Chris wrote to mark his leaving the company until my eye-makeup was quite ruined.

Words, shivers and fungus.

1. Oli has written a poem describing how Tunbridge Wells makes him veer between wanting to fall in love and wanting to shoot people. Which is nice. What I like is the number of details he picks out that made me go 'Oh yeah! I noticed that too!', such as the apparent coldness of the army surplus shop. I have put the poem (I would have used the word 'verse' here so as not to repeat 'poem' but Oli got cross yesterday when I called it 'verse'. Given the theme, I'm trying to stay on his good side) up on Tunbridge Wells Tells, my celebration of 400 years of the town.

2. I got caught in the rain again, but I enjoyed warming up under a hot shower.

3. Dried mushrooms because they magically expand when cooked.

Willows, piebald and indulgent.

1. Walking into a charity shop and seeing a beautiful 1950s Wind in the Willows illustrated by E.H. Shepard. Wind in the Willows is one of those books I like to read and re-read. I have had an edition illustrated by Michael Hague since I was seven, and flipping through this new copy I've already spotted some familiar compositions.

2. I saw five magpies, and it reminded me of the counting rhyme One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold and seven's a secret that's never been told. I like counting rhymes because they have a good walking rhythm. And the ones to help you remember the alphabet, too.

3. Walking home across The Common and seeing other people out enjoying the rain, too, including a lady walking a big white poodle, and someone far off with a bright crimson umberella.

Columns, ow and nipple.

1. Rain dropping out of the sky in straight lines. I once saw a poem - it was arranged letter by letter down the page - that said something like: 'When the rain is falling in long columns we are inclined to forget how wonderful it is.'

2. I've got a sore wisdom tooth. Not really sure what to do about it. Then my dentist rings. 'Our computer's down. Do you know if you've got an appointment soon?' 'Nope,' I say. 'But can you tell me what to do about this wisdom tooth?' 'If you pop in, we'll have a look and maybe give you some antibiotics.'

3. I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I love popular science books about the origins of life; and I love Bill Bryson's eye for interesting details - there are giant concrete dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park and a dinner party for 21 was held in the iguanadon; Marsh and Cope discovered the same dinosaur 29 times; mastodon means 'nipple tooth'.

Paint, sophisticates and slam.

1. The outside of our office building is being painted. Every time I go in or out a different coat in a different colour has been put on.

2. Ed leaves work half an hour before me. I noticed that it was chucking it down with rain and laughed. He replied:
As Clare walks home down the lane
Let there be a hurricane.

Obviously I couldn't let that go and cursed him with:
Cold winds batter Edwin Birch
To make his footsteps veer and lurch.

3. A call from my neighbour Fenella. 'When you get home, can you do me a HUGE favour? Can you pop down and let Andy out of my study?' Apparently, the doorknob had 'come off in his hand.'