Three Beautiful Things

The baby now has a middle name: Alexander David Law. My grandfather was called David, and as they share a birthday it seemed appropriate. I hope that Alec will also share some of his qualities 1. I leave the house without Alec for the first time. I'm just going across the park to Hoopers to pick up a birthday present for my mother. On the way home, I think of Alec's particular baby smell and I want to cry. 2. I sit in bed on the phone to my aunt, while the bomb-proof baby sleeps on in his basket. 3. Nick patiently comforts Alec after night feeds while the wind goes its way. Alec is still getting to know his digestive system, and finds the whole thing very alarming. We tell him it will pass, and that he'll feel better, but he wrings his hands anxiously and there's a very puzzled look about his eyes.

1. I go looking for a writing group -- but it's half term, so they're not meeting. Good -- I can go back to bed. 2. It's such a beautiful day -- and I have plenty to do in the back yard. I plant a few bulbs, and feel pleased at the sight of fresh compost in the pots. I also cut down the tired mint -- it makes the rubbish bag very fresh smelling.   3. A high flock of birds -- each one small as stubble on a man's cheek.

1. Anna brings gossip and lemons -- part of a gift for a friend. The kitchen smells citric for the rest of the day. 2. Nick has been to the dentist and feels very sorry for himself. I tell him have been beside myself with worry all morning, imagining myself in one of those real life magazines: "My husband only went in for a filling and came back with NO HEAD." 3. I'm dreaming that I'm in a crowded place. Pain in my calf makes me shout. Faces look down at me curiously and I have no idea what to do. Then: "Is it cramp?" Kind hands flex my foot and lead me back down into the pillows.

1. A man smoking a pipe walks past the top of the road. When I come to turn left, I can still smell his burnt sugar tobacco. 2. The children come down to see what this dinner party is about, and you can see their parents' expressions and manners flickering in their faces. 3. Warm, dark brownies (two squares are missing from the tin) and ice cream.

1. To go outside and find that a little rain has fallen on a warm day. 2. Thunder storm: save your work. 3. I unlock the door and the house smells of new bread.

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.

1. A choral version of Rodrigo's Aranjuez concerto woke me up yesterday morning -- it's a plaintive love song, set in the gardens of Aranjuez. It sounds to me like a couple calling to each other in the morning, just as its getting light. We heard it on BBC Radio 3's CD Review. You might be able to listen again (go to 2h36mins), depending on where you are in the world. Or the CD is Espana: A Choral Postcard From Spain . 2. Nick comes back from his errand. He smells of fresh air and sunshine. 3. "I'll do the washing up. You go and have a bath."

1. Our house doctor says: "Whatever you've got baking, keep doing it." It's just a loaf of bread -- but the smell always cheers me up, too. 2. He says that there is a badger track across his town garden, and that friends over the road have a sett, too. 3. Andy walks me home after an evening of catching up and commiseration about the housing market. If anyone wants Tunbridge Wells flats, we've got them.

1. On the common, the smell of cut green wood where workmen are clearing the banks. It's a like a carpentry workshop, and a like a cold day. 2. There is so much to love about the Warner Brothers' short I Love to Singa -- the story of a little owl who dared to sing jazz against the wishes of his classically-trained parents. The mother owl's distress always puts a little lump in my throat, and then the cartoon hits me in the face with the 'No we didn't, lady" gag. If you've got eight minutes, give it a viewing. 3. Nick normally hauls the bins up to the road once a fortnight and grumbles about how he always has to do it. At 5pm, I hear the old rrrrollll -scrape of the recycling bins trundling up the drive, and think for a moment that Nick has come home early. He hasn't -- but when he does get in, he's very pleased at not having to do a chore he dislikes.

1. I pull the dead sunflower from the pot by the front door. The mint plant protests in the only way it can, by rolling clouds of its scent at me. New compost and a watering cheer it up a little -- but it still looks resentful. 2. The vines are finished, and so I root them out, only to find a stunted yellow cucumber has been growing un-noticed and (until now) un-loved. 3. Making up a dish of seasoned flour, coating some lemon sole fillets and frying them in some melted butter until the fish turns from translucent and marble cold to opaque and soft. The coating crisps a little and turns from raw white powder to a red-gold crust. Picture of mint from Stock.xchng

1. I stand sadly in the middle of the precinct because I can't think of any chocolate or cake in town that I want. Later in the greengrocers, I put five plump and sticky fresh dates in a paper bag. 2. Grating the zest from a lime -- the scent of it. 3. A book of short adventure stories by the man who dreamed up Conan, Robert E. Howard. Haunter of the Ring and Other Tales is a collection of those ponderous dark stories that publishers won't take any more. They begin slowly -- sit down, get comfortable, ready to listen while I tell you -- rather than bouncing you into the story by starting in the middle of the action.

Dan Holloway, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes , publishes an interview with me today in his View From the Shoe column. Thanks, Dan. 1. Nick's mother shows me the splitting helix pods of sweetpea seeds. 'They're for the new house,' she says. These are second generation seeds from a packet I gave her soon after Nick and I got together. 2. While supper is in the oven (the vegetables are lined up waiting their turn) we go out to walk Once Around the Park . When we come back, the flat smells of roasting chicken and crispy bacon. 3. The deep auburn colour of redbush tea with no milk.

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.

1. Those people who buttonhole you in the street to persuade you to sign up for something: I like to tell them I'm in a hurry. 2. Jubilant Nick comes home triumphant after running his yearly three mile race in 35 minutes. 3. My fingers are faintly sticky from the dried lavender I've been stuffing into an embroidered heart.

1. The rain comes, hissing on the ground and clearing the air. 2. I like walking in the rain wearing sandals so that the water goes in and then comes out again. 3. The lime blossom smells even better (sweet, sour and charming) wet than dry.

1. I put the last of the stewed strawberries on my cereal to turn the milk pink. 2. Rosey disappears into the bathroom. A moment later, she shouts through the door: "I think I've got internalised tattooing disease and logopetria." I start to wonder what she's up to... and then remember that I left my copy of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases in there. 3. My father apologises for the tiny bunch of sweetpeas; but even the brave few have perfumed the kitchen.

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.

1. Deadheading. I want you to concentrate on flowers, not capers. The nose-twisting smell of nasturtium sap. 2. Nick's mother tells me to spend it on "something nice that you need." 3. This plant food is such a bright blue that I am afraid it will tint my garden with undersea colours.

Hallo to all the Hungarians visiting. Thanks for your interest. 1. If it's raining, I take the bus into work instead of walking. Sometimes, it looks like it's going to rain and then doesn't -- and I feel bad for spending money I could have saved, and guilty for not taking the exercise. Today there were definite rain drops, and I felt I'd made the right choice. 2. In my pile of mail is a card from the postman saying I have a parcel waiting; and a snail badge from Sheer Sumptuosity . 3. I lie back in a violet-scented bubble bath and start reading Twisted Wing -- it's a gory university murder mystery set in a fictional Cambridge College. I'm not normally a serial killer story fan; but I do like a good university novel. It's a real gore-spattered page-turner, full of solid characters that you love and hate by turns. One of the view-point characters is a forensic psychologist, and it's fascinating (and educational) to see the world through his eyes, t...

1. The kitchen smells of roses from the two bunches in mugs on the table. 2. The Alpine strawberries are making hard green promises of sweet red dots. 3. He puts a stack of dishes into the washing up bowl, and bubbles come up -- blop, blop, blop.