Flood, done and dinner.

1. I'm close to finishing Stephen Baxter's Flood, which I've enjoyed very much. It's an epic about a global flood, seen mostly through the eyes of a group of former hostages linked by a promise to look out for each other. They come under the wing of a super-rich businessman who is determined to keep his genetic line and philosophy alive. I've got a bit of a soft spot for post-apocalypse fiction -- does anyone have any recommendations to add to this Amazon list which I started at some time or other?

2. I like to see the score marks from yesterday's to-do list pressed through on to today's.

3. Nick takes me out for tapas "because we haven't been out for a while."

Waiting, it's over and I'm having a bath.

I've just discovered Tangible Joy has been 3BTing. I like her rebellion against Starbucksification; and also her appreciation for her job.

1.  In the doctor's waiting room, two small boys (with what looks like the last of chickenpox) wait with their mother. One of them shows off his counting (he does very well, but then goes straight from 29 to 99) and the other plays "give me five... you're too slow" with his mum. He tries to distract her by telling her there's a spider on the ceiling. They make me smile; and I catch the eye of another lady who is also smiling.

2. I go for a smear test -- the nurse is kind and chatty, and it's over so quickly that I hardly realise it's happened.

3. The washing up is done, and Nick has baseball to watch. I squeeze one third of a bottle of shower gel into the bath and make myself some bubbles to hide under while I read.

Raindrops, roses and gem from the pile.

1. I like the patter-spat of rain on my umbrella.


2. Nick comes home with an armful of roses. They are yellow with a red blush at the tips of the petals, and make me think of orange juice carefully poured over grenadine.

3. I've picked up Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black. It's been in my to read pile for years -- I think I might have snaffled it from Katie who I used to live with. But anyway -- now I've got going with it, I'm hooked on the story of a voluptuous psychic and her spikey nowhere woman sidekick. I wonder what other gems there are hiding in my pile?

The contract, wonder wire and the manuscript.

1. I always dread the day I've got to alter my phone contract. I try to research what I want, but the website makes my head spin. Then I grit my teeth and make the call. It's easier than I think, and I feel better afterwards.

2. Man on Wire is the story of the man who walked on a high wire between the World Trade Centre towers in 1974. It re-unites the team who pulled off the stunt for an emotional account of an act of wonder. Philippe Petit describes how he first saw a picture of the yet-to-be built towers in a magazine in a dentist's waiting room. He pretended to sneeze so that he could tear out the page without anyone noticing -- and yet he went on to rebel against authority by stringing wires without permission between the high places of public landmarks.

3. Last thing at night, I settle down in bed with The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. It's a tale of ghosts, Gypsies and mystery religions set in Spain. It reminds me in parts of Jonathan Strange; and in parts of Italo Calvino.

Eye-candy, sky tide and sleepy.

1. "So much eye-candy for the girls," says a spectator at the homecoming parade of our local troops, First Battalion The Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment.

2. We go to the very top of the Tate Modern and eat supper looking out across London as the night washes in.

3. I like to read last thing at night, and to feel my head getting heavy.

Doormen, scent of cucumber and birthday books.

1. A door opens on to the street. One boy stands guard just outside, the other lies across the threshold using his greying toy lamb as a pillow.

2. I brush past a tea towel hanging on the line. It smells fresh and bright because Nick has used it to squeeze the juice from grated cucumber.

3. Nick has an evening of baseball lined up. I retire to the bedroom to enjoy my large pile of birthday books.

Fruit, foxglove and a start.

My friend Chris, who was mentioned in the first 3BT post, is hoping for enough votes to make his cat Guido The Face of Wiskas. He really is a beautiful thing, and Chris is ridiculously fond of him, so your votes would make my day! You don't have to register -- it's just a click and you're away.

1. I go to grab my phone from my bag, and the box of strawberries sings out a perfumed breath.

2. A lone foxglove growing out of the cliff under Rock Cottage.

3. Starting to read a new book.

Routine, book and pear juice.

Here's a guest post from Fiona Robyn. These beautiful things are taken from her new book, The Letters, which came out this week. You can pick up a copy from Amazon, or direct from the publisher, Snow Books.

1. They kiss cheeks at the door, and Violet is grateful for the press of his cheek on hers, warm and solid like a crust of freshly baked bread. (p124)

2. Once, when it was blowing a gale outside, she found herself wrapping herself in layers and layers of clothes and walking along the beach, just to feel the strength of the weather pushing against her body. This is what people mean by exhilarating, she thought, as she watched the sea kicked up into tatters and pushed her shoulders forwards into the wind. (p199)

3. Her son sweeps her into his arms and waltzes her around the kitchen. She wriggles a little at first but relents and relaxes into his grip. She notices a kiss-curl in his hair and is struck by a bolt of affection. Wasn't it only yesterday when she'd lift him from his bath and swaddle him in his favourite red towel, his eye-lids drooping with sleepiness? How did he get so big? (p144)

And these are my beautiful things.

1. Getting back into the routine after a week away.

2. Sneaking reads of a book while I wait for supper to cook.

3. Peeling a pear so the juice runs down my fingers.

Decorations, milk tooth and the right words.

1. In confidence, I am told that her older step brother (11) has a girlfriend; and that she phoned him on Valentine's Day. She has a scattering of freckles which look as if they have been artfully pencilled across her nose.

2. Gore runs down her chin. The other little girls look on horrified. Then she puts a finger in her mouth and pulls out a tiny bloody fragment. Another one for the toothfairy.

3. She reads to us from the book we sent her for her birthday. It was one of my favourites when I was her age, and she falters on the words that puzzled me -- "What's parapet? And what's ch... ch... chas-m... chasame?"

A dress, paneer and bedtime story.

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."

Little lit, changes and thanks.

1. Short stories are exactly the right size for a lunch break.

2. The transformations in Fenella and Andy's home. Crisp white damask curtains arrived today and are presently tied into neat pleats: they are memory curtains, and if they are kept in place for 24 hours, will remember the shape and go back to it every time they are closed. When you've had no bedroom curtains for a few months, a 24-hour wait seems like a lifetime.

3. I come home to find an anonymous comment on yesterday's post that reminds me -- in the nicest possible way -- to write my thank you letters.

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.

There all along, beans and object of desire.

1. In my pile of morning reading, a list of homographs makes me perk up -- I'd never noticed evening and evening or moped and moped.

3. Popping broad beans out of their pods -- I like the foamy lining.

2. A Freecycle pick-up. At 9am, I decide I want a soldering iron to fix my hairclip. At 4.30pm, I find one waiting on an assigned bench.

Breakfast, make room, make room and Gemma.

Still getting spammy comments, so I'm still moderating, but hoping to switch back soon.

1. I love taking my breakfast tray into my room.

2. I'm moving again, so the time has come to shed some stuff -- in particular, books. I go through the shelves and am surprised that I can pull about nearly a meter-and-a-half of books that I'm never going to look at again.

3. I crouch in bed totally absorbed by Gemma Bovery. I love its shameless middle-class setting, and I am in awe of Posy Simmonds' ability to make us both despise and love the characters -- Joubert is creepy and bumbling, yet brave and kind; Gemma is ridiculous and cruel, yet beautiful and deserving of love. I occasionally stop reading to seethe with jealousy at the power of illustration. An artist can draw a person in 25 lines and a bit of wash and you know what they look like like, how they stand, what they wear. It would take a writer pages to do that -- and I'd probably cut it all out for being 'showing-not-telling'.

The juice runs out, book and the pages.

1. Slicing up an orange for breakfast, and tipping the juice from the board into my bowl.

2. Elizabeth gives me a book I have wanted to read for ages. It's Posy Simmonds' Gemma Bovery.

3. Stapling my scripts for writing class. It's all very well seeing the lines on the screen, but having real pages makes me feel as if I've really done the work.

Sending the lads round, fairy skirt and love story.

1. Asked to research someone to collect payment from a recalitrant bookseller, I am wary. I have images of monosyllabic people with scarred knuckles, unsavoury practitioners to a man. Instead I find professional and, I think, compassionate, people who do a task that other people don't have the skills to do for themselves.

2. Tiny rain drops soak the air and my hood. Walking up the hill in front of me is a mother towing a bawling six-year-old wearing a sparkly fairy skirt that ends in long points, each tipped with a green bobble.

3. Last thing at night, I finally get to finish reading a story in Interzone. Endra - From Memory is a magical tale of a beautiful captain who comes into port, charms a landbound official and then disappears in search of a mythical city. It's set in a place where the oceans are rising and place names are half-familiar. I've never noticed the writer, Chelsea Quinn Yarboro, before, but she's very prolific, so I reckon there are some treats in store.

On the edge, biscuit and miracle.

1. Books that end with cliff hangers -- I've just finished reading the last available book in George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. One character is in prison, another has been blinded, another is about the be hanged, a fourth has found his love turned to hate, another is wondering exactly who betrayed her -- her father knows, but won't tell her.

2. A home made biscuit that tastes faintly of lemons.

3. A miracle must have happened -- there is a walking stick lying in the middle of the park.

Growing things, brass and a good book.

1. Scattering seeds on warm soil.

2. I put the radio on and discover a programme about brass bands from the North East playing arrangements of folk tunes. One of the bands is the Reg Vardy Band -- I remember seeing 'Reg Vardy' stickers on most secondhand cars in Durham.

3. Reading until I fall asleep.

Cheese savoury, Braille and clean floors.

1. In my bag is a sandwich labelled 'Cheese savoury'. It's in a crusty long roll and for some reason I am very much looking forward to it.

2. Braille feels lovely (that's what my paid for work involves). It never occurred to me before that it might be just as pleasurable to feel as text can be to see. The paper is thick and creamy smooth and weighty -- you feel as if you are using a high-class product. The embossed dots catch on my fingertips; and few patterns that I now recognise make me feel as if I've been inducted into a secret society.

3. 'It's a bit of a disaster area,' I told the man who has come to clean the carpets. 'Whatever you can do will improve the situation.' When I get home in the evening, a miracle has happened -- the carpets feel... they feel like new, and what I thought were stains have gone. Katie and I keep grinning at the thought of it.

One a penny two a penny, the words come and get out of here.

1. Seasonal food -- hot cross buns, I'm thinking of, full of sultanas and peel and spice. They are all the nicer because they only come at Eastertide.

2. I have been chewing my fingers and staring at the screen all morning; but the words won't come. Suddenly, just before I have to go to work, they tumble out and I write a page in ten minutes -- this is a huge relief.

3. There is no-where much to go at lunchtime if you can't afford to buy a coffee, so I sit on a bench in the shopping centre with a story magazine. It's amazing how the hurrying crowds around me disappear.