Oil on water, I saw and peppermint creams.

1. Lenses of oil on water magnify the bottom of the bread tin.

2. A man and a woman are talking outside the window. Only the child on the man's shoulders sees Alec in his blue cardigan waving and smiling.

3. A box of peppermint creams in opulent red and gold foil printed with moons and suns and stars. They look as if they might have magical properties -- with this one you'll see the future. This one will make you sprout (temporary) wings. That one has a flavour now lost to history. Another will give you visions of paradise.

Blue peas, bouncing and gammon.

1. I can't get over those sweetpeas -- I find one that is Mediterranean blue, and another that is the colour of the sky between the stars on a clear full moon night.

2. Alec giggling as we toss him in the bed sheet, plump him up as if he were a pillow and throw the duvet over him. He's starting to anticipate the bed linen games now -- he smiles broadly when we put him in his cot and clear the clothes off the foot of the bed.

3. To jab cloves into the crisp layers of an onion -- it's going to flavour the gammon I am boiling.

Putting the bed back together, pizza and Beast Below.

1. The rattling, squeaky whirr of bolts being tightened in a metal bed frame.

2. We go out and I eat the pizza (pepperoni with fresh tomatoes, mozarella and an egg on top) that I have been longing for so vividly that it's almost painful.

3. Cracking episode of Dr Who -- The Beast Below. It's set on Starship UK -- the country (except Scotland, who wanted their own ship) has escaped from a planetary catastrophe on to a starship. Sinister fairground machines keep the denizens in a state of fear, and disobedience is rewarded with a trip to the Beast Below. The Doctor swears he never interferes -- but a little girl is crying...

So below, drying out and work harder.

1. Spring flowers are fallen stars.

2. crick-crack crick crick-crack. Pine cones are opening in the hot bright air.

3. A crow watches the collared doves. A mean boss on a warm Friday afternoon.

Remember, gentleman callers and our neighbours.

1. Granny Pat remembers my husband. "She said: 'That's Nick Law'," my aunt tells us.


2. Stand still. Willow tit (drab little fellow in a black velvet cap) and nut hatch (black Lone Ranger mask, blue-grey jacket and a waistcoat the colour of the ragged inner bark that clings to sweet chestnut rails).

3. "That bright star on the horizon is Venus," says my uncle. "And at about four o'clock, there's a dimmer one -- that's Mercury. You don't often see them together." Later, as we walk home from the station, we look at the sky again. "Do you see stars, or just dots of light?" Nick asks.

Spice Store, battle and the solar system.

I added three new 3BTers to the Roll of Honour -- all in Spanish. Estando en Babia, El w.c. de Eric, and Despiertos. I've been using Google Translate to get an idea of what they're saying. Muchas gracias por los tres cosas agradables.

1. To hear the shopkeeper discussing ingredients with the family ahead of me in the queue. He is opening a bag of fresh herbs and saying: "I've got some black vinegar downstairs, but it's very expensive."

2. While I work, I can hear Nick and his friend Nigel battling their forces up and down the kitchen table. At the end of the afternoon, they say rather ruefully that they spent most of the day stealing chickens from each other, rather actually engaging.

3. We watch the lovely, lovely Professor Brian Cox revealing the wonders of the solar system. I'm sort of aware of space and moons and eclipses and doesn't the sky look cool through binoculars. But as a result of a disturbing incident with a science book when I was five, I've never really bothered to understand it beyond what I needed to follow an episode of Star Trek. But when the Professor explains it, I really, really want to learn, even the numbers and the distances. He makes it seem like something wonderful he's found, but he's a bit shy about showing you.

Got everything, rings on and star gazing.

1. The man with a van we have hired to carry our stuff into storage asks if I have money for the train before he drops me off at the station.


2. Earlier this week I had to take off my rings because I had a sore, rough spot between my fingers. Today it has healed, so I put them on again.

3. To stand on a doorstep and see that above the clouds, the stars are so bright that Betelgeuse is clearly red.

Saving grace, viewer and film India.

1. We follow the herd to M&S for an eat-in-for-£10 offer. I push through the scrum to get a bottle of wine, a small chicken, a bag of prepared vegetables and two chocolate-toffee-cream confections. The check-out man says: "Do you want to know how much you've saved?" Of course we do -- he tells us it's £6.

2. A lady comes to view the flat. We've worked hard to make it appealing, and she is positive -- says of the eight she's seen today, this is one of two that she likes.

3. We watch Om Shanti Om. I've never seen a Bollywood film before. Nick, judging by his familiarity with the stars who made guest appearances at an award ceremony after-party song and dance number, has seen a great many. The word "bonkers" springs to mind, with the random song and dance numbers and the bizarre plot which relies on the hero being re-born in order to avenge himself on the baddie -- but I'm still humming the tunes this morning, and it was a good piece of escapism.

Still asleep, warm light and Christmas spirit.

You locals might be interested in Nash -- an online arts magazine for Tunbridge Wells.

1. It's so dark in the mornings now. It's cold, too. We have a lie-in.

2. On a cold night (stars are hard and clear, the air is crackling with frost) ducking into the station waiting room where the light is warm.

3. I love coming into Tim and Rachel's house at Christmas: it's so full of details. I catch sight of a Christmas apron, and a plate of biscuits for Santa, and a ceramic nativity. Their Christmas tree is the throw-it-all-on variety, and it looks absolutely magical, with something wonderful on each branch.

Coffee, kale and stars.

1. While we wait, we go to a cafe and drink coffee with froth on top.

2. I've cooked kale with our pasta, and when I add the tomato sauce, Louise says: "Look at how a bit of green lifts the dish."

3. It's such a clear night that the stars look like the sun coming through holes punched in a blackout curtain.

Picture of kale from Stock.xchng

Pine tree, tomatoes and heroes.

1. I like to look up at the stars of pine needles, and hear the wind breathing through them.

2. After a day of bright sun and wind, the tomato plants are looking droopy, so I water them.

3. We watch Ray Mears' Real Heroes of Telemark -- a documentary that combines bushcraft, skiing and sabotage of a Nazi atomic bomb programme. How could I not love it?

Gorse, game of shadows and purple gaze.

1. The gorse in glorious cadmium yellow flower toasts in the sun smelling of coconut biscuits.

2. I like to hear Nick planning how he would deploy forces if he was playing a wargame across a landscape.

2.5. We are enticed from our route by a sign that says 'Permissive Path to Shop'. It leads through a squeaky metal gate decorated with a cut-out foxglove and round the edge of a field of black bullocks. The field lush green, but the path is as studded with daisies as the Milky Way is with stars.

3. A few violets fix us with a piercing indigo gaze from the bank under the hedge.

The first time, night sky and dinner away.

1. This is the first clear still winter day I have experienced living on this street. While walking up the hill towards the low morning sun, I wonder what the town's valley will look like. The anticipation is almost too much, but I'm not too excited to stop and break the ice on a puddle.

2. Seeing the stars for the first time in weeks.

3. Katie-who-used-to-be-at-home and I share a bottle of wine and get more and more giggly. Virtuous PaulV looks on with his jug of water and his mint tea. When I get home, Nick comes to hug me at the door and I can't quite manage to focus on his eyes.

Pavement stars, clouds and up the hill.

John Naish recommends keeping a journal similar to this as a good way to survive mass anxiety: How to survive the global panic. He calls me 'an expert gratitude spotter'.

1. Stars are pressed into the pavement in all the flamey reds and golds of autumn.

2. Rolls of fat grey cloud cover the sky. The low late sun tints the eastern bellies with grubby orange.

3. I am passing the bus stop just as the bus pulls in, and get a lift up the hill.

White stuff, hound and all change.

1. Dragging Nick out of the shower to look out of the window... it snowed in the night, and fat flakes are still falling.

2. We venture out to look for lunch and settle in a pub. In the corner, lying on a red blanket is a sleek brindled hound.

3. Crossing town and passing snowmen in parks and gardens and families using their toboggans for the first time this winter. The slopes on the common were almost worn bald. Bowed daffodils look like fallen stars hidden in the snow. And cherry trees carry extra marshmallow puffs on their pink blossoms.

In the air, golden box and ground stars.

Almost a year ago, I chatted with John Naish about gratitude, and part of a chapter in his book Enough was the result.

1. The air is warm and has a certain sweet scent to it that suggests Spring might be around the corner.

2. Nick brings a box of chocolates because he thinks I sound unhappy on the phone.

3. We come across a park where tiny daffodils like little yellow stars cover the ground.

Missing time, walking up and game's afoot.

1. Quietly engaged in my work, I look up to see that it's 1.20pm. Must get some lunch when I've finished this page. When I look up again, it's 2.20pm.

2. Walking up to Nick's, I realise I am still getting that feeling of trembly excitement.

3. Tim is leading us in a new campaign. I'm playing an idiot warrior. I love generating a new character, coming up with his backstory and personality; and thinking about why he might be the way he is. Nick cast his horoscope to help the process, and it was interesting to see how we had to bend the interpretations to fit the facts. For example: according to the stars, he lets his head rule his personal life. But since in most other things he hits first and asks questions later... much later, if at all, it was hard to see how this would work. Then we decided that his early life as a slave on the women's island of Zenn had made him very cynical about love, so he would appraise (in his limited way) what he could get from a relationship, rather than diving right in.

Conversation, lamb and cloths of heaven.

1. On the bus a little girl in a pushchair talks to her grandfather about their fingers and thumbs, his watch and whether or not he has a fat tummy.

2. A dish containing shank of lamb, sticky dark gravy and creamed potatoes.

3. Walking in the dark and seeing a skyful of stars.

Sparks, roots and starry night.

1. We learn to use flint and steel to light tinder and start a fire. The combination of patience and dexterity is almost beyond me, but with tonnes of encouragement: 'Try with my flint.' 'You need a bigger bit of charcloth.' 'Take it slowly. Be patient.' 'You're making sparks at least, now just get them on the cloth... that's an ember! Careful, careful.' And suddenly there was a ball of smouldering hay in my hands -- 'Blow on it... now waft it down while you breathe in... bring it up... blow... hold it tightly...' and everyone cheers as the flames begin, and dizzy from hyperventilating, I drop my kindling into the campfire.

2. It's raining and we are crouched under a yew tree digging for long roots. I like this sort of exercise much better than carving or making fires. It's very satisfying to grub down in the earth and find a root, follow first in one direction and then in another and then pull it free.

3. I am sleeping under a tarpaulin strung between two trees. It was raining when I crawled into my bivi bag. I wake in the night to find stars in a clear sky sparkling between the chestnut leaves. In the morning, it's raining again.

Wedding bells, imperial march and welcome.

1. Tim and Rachel looking so happy on their wedding day.

2. Rachel and her entourage entered to The Imperial March from Star Wars; and as a surprise for Tim, she hired Darth Vader to bring the rings up.

3. I know Tim because I lived with him for a year at the start of the 2000s, but I only knew other people at the wedding very vaguely. It's pretty scary going to a social occasion by yourself, but actually, it was fine. People remembered me from very brief meetings and I find that lots of the things I like about Tim (encylopaedic knowledge of sci fi and fantasy), I like about them, too. I am told about a friend who lives in a half-built house the south of France where you have to take a bath under the stars; and a terrifying story of a flashflood while canyoning. I find myself squired for the evening -- even to the lengths of sitting by while I talk newspaper shop with a former colleague; and advising me on the spelling of Cthulhu (don't ask). When I look lost for a moment, a girl squeezes my arm companionably. Someone invites me to share a taxi at the end of the evening -- and sorts out the payment.