Three Beautiful Things

1. I secretly like the odd slice of white plastic bread, toasted with lots of butter. 2. I put on the TV in the waiting-for-Nick-to-come-home half hour and find an episode of the Simpsons that I've never seen before. 3. It's discouraging, brownish and lumpy before I blend it (with a lot of milkl) into silky yellow curried parsnip soup.

I've added a couple more links to Mela pictures -- see yesterday's post . 1. I leave a couple of books on a bench for the purposes of Bookcrossing . As I saunter innocently away, an elderly man walking sticks his way to the bench and bends over to have a good look at them. 2. A rough edge on my nail keeps catching. I file it off. 3. On my way through the park to the post box, I meet Matt carrying Oli. 'Dinner's ready, but it's so nice out here that we don't want to go in.'

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.

1. Using my hand blender to make green mashed potato from left-over mange tout. 2. A handy blue basket allows one to lift the cubes of feta out of the brine. 3. Watching footage of people who live in thousand-year-old tower houses four days drive from the nearest main road using fleeces to extract gold from rivers. In the background, a deep blue sky and snow-capped mountains.

1. Dozing and waking on a weekday morning because Nick has the day off. We are lying under a new quilt cover -- the old one was cheap and scratchy (what do you expect for a fiver from Woolworths), but the new birthday present one is so smooth I keep wanting to wriggle against it. 2. On a bright morning, sauntering home the long way so I can enjoy the light and shade on the common. I'll miss the sharp thin shadows of twigs once the leaves come out. 3. There's no point trying to write when I feel this mopey -- so I put on the Afternoon Play and do some tidying.

1. My email comes with ads suggested by the content of my messages -- I'm sure my privacy is being invaded somehow, but what's a girl to do? Anyway, while I'm casting an eye over my spam basket, I note that the ads are all for spam recipes. They lead back to this page . Spam primavera anyone? Or, or, Tyrospamites? They sound like boys in the cavalcade of a decadent eastern ruler. 2. Watching a Technicolor film about nuns -- The Black Narcissus -- being seduced by a Himalayan landscape. 3. In the dark it is hard to tell if the wet white flakes blatting on the windscreen are sleet or cherry blossom.

1. In a flowershop bucket, anemones hide deep red and purple petals behind a lace of green sepals. 2. An unattended rubber ball bounces down a London street, noticed only by Caroline, who points it out to me. 3. Hilary tells a true story that makes me giggle every time I catch her eye. It involves 93-year-old charity shop volunteer who was so short-sighted that she whipped out a magnifying glass whenever anyone asked her to look at something. One day, a flasher came into the shop... and I think you can see where this is going.

The Roll of Honour has been updated -- if anyone isn't on who should be, get in touch . 1. Meeting a self-set deadline. 2. Producing some exquisite piece of tableware and Katie saying: 'I didn't know we had port glasses. Where did these come from?' and saying 'Those old things? They were at the back of the cupboard.' 3. That moment between saying something really cheeky and having a ball of wool thrown at my head.

1. Morning starts to late these days that I get to watch the sun coming up over the chimney pots of Warwick Park. 2. I challenge Oli about the fact that his presents to both He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and me included water pistols. He laughs. 3. A previously sterile and echoey pub is turned into an Arabian palace with low brass tables, pierced metal lanterns and huge cushions.

1. More leaf shuffling. Oli and I walk into work along the lane. I tell him that part of the pleasure of walking in leaves is thinking that someone might tell you off. So we shout at each other to stop messing around. 2. Plump ginger biscuits with drizzled stripes of hard caramel. 3. I am cold, and remember I have a fleece dressing gown.

1. Large and succulent glace cherries in a muffin. 2. Shuffling leaves at the side of the road and feeling as if I might be told off for making a mess, but enjoying the sound too much to stop. 3. For weeks I've been struggling to 'get' a character's voice in my radio play. Each time I offer him up to the class, heads are shaken. But yesterday, it was decided that he had arrived aboard the ship. It's a relief -- and I know I can do this again the next time I run into the same problem.

Nick and I spent yesterday visiting buildings in the Heritage Open Day . 1. Reading that St Augustine's church was once described as a 'tent' and that it helps worshippers recall the nomadic roots of their religion. It's a low modern building laid out in a square -- the congregation must feel very involved with the services. Nick thought its high rafters made it like a Medieval hall. The guide who greeted us said that when the church was first opened in 1974, she didn't get on very well with the modern architecture, but it has grown on her. 2. The stained glass window at the back of the stage in Trinity Arts Centre . Trinity is a converted church and the window is normally hidden by a curtain. 3. Going upstairs in the Opera House. It's been a pub since I moved to Tunbridge Wells. Before that, it was a bingo hall, and before that a cinema, and before it was a theatre. The dress circle has recently restored red tip-up seats. But I didn't know there was an u...

1. Looking back over a long piece of work and running a word count on it. 2. Pippin, a golden retriever, is moulting -- fluffs of white blonde undercoat are poking through her red gold topcoat. It is tremendously satisfying to pull them out and let them fly away. 3. Stripping the cardboard off a four-pack of tins and leaving it at the checkout so that we don't have to take it home, store it and then bring it back to the recycling centre. I secretly hope that other people will do it too and supermarkets will start to take more responsibility for their share of domestic waste.

1. I am tapping away in the sitting room first thing and Katie comes in with a mug of tea. 2. PaulV goes into Katie's room to get changed and emerges wearing her pyjama bottoms. To get him back, I put a bra in his coat pocket. Wish I'd thought, as Kim suggested, of putting a thong in his wallet. 3. Guests sitting on our big red sofas eating icecream and chocolate sauce.

1. Riding high up in the front of my brother's van so I can see over hedges and into gardens. 2. Walking in the woods and seeing other families darting in and out of trees. 3. Sharing a room with my brother and sister and giggling with them before we went to sleep. Robert teased Rosey, who was poking at her phone in the dark with: 'Rose and [a selection of boys she may or may not have fancied in the past] in a tree T-E-X-T-I-N-G.' We retorted: 'Robert Grant in a tree S-H-U-T--U-P.'

1. Some mischief has glued a handful of change to the pavement near the station. 2. My parents ordering a plate of biscuits to go with our hot chocolate at Carluccio's. 3. The waiter at Dim Tee explaining the ways of tea -- including tea that is picked by monkeys, tea that looks like Buddha's eyebrows and tea that unwinds as it brews.

Two recent posts that I have enjoyed about 3BT -- one on Now's the Time marking Joe's 500th entry ; and one in Coulter's Heaven . 1. Oli's excitement about his new bathroom. 2. Going to the cinema with people who play 'Guess what this is advertising.' 3. The wanton destruction in James Bond because no-one appears to worry about who is going to clear it up.

We are staying at Preseli Venture , Pembrokeshire for a weekend of outdoor activities celebrating James' 30th birthday. Our adventures for today are coasteering and hiking. 1. I'm scared of jumping into water. I'm not scared of water or heights -- it's the act of stepping off the edge that frightens me. And I really suffer from cold shock when I jump in -- I lose breath control and for a couple of minutes can do nothing but gasp uncontrollably, sucking down whatever air and water get into my nose and mouth. So my first beautiful thing is... every time I jump into water, I know that I am beating the fear; and that the next time I want to jump in, it'll be easier. And also, I always get used to the water, and after the first ducking, I'm in control of my breathing again. 2. Coasteering takes you to places that you are normally not supposed to go. Cliffs, for example; the white water at the bottom of cliffs, and rocks just offshore. 3. Julia -- the American girl t...

1. Thinking we've lost our office spider, and then realising I'm looking out of the wrong bit of window. 2. Teasing Charlotte, our latest recruit, about working on a publication called Pooley's : HWSNBN: Clare used to do Pooley's when she first arrived. Me: Yeah, I remember you doing Pooley's in the corner of the old office. HWSNBN: We all have to do Pooley's at some point. Me: At certain times of year, there's piles of Pooley's all over the office. Etc until we are laughing too much to go on. 3. Drinking hot chocolate in a cafe and writing a list of 50 things that make me happy.

1. The huge satisfaction of being unhelpful to a rude customer. 2. Just before 8pm, I pass a shop that is being refitted. There are tools and wood and dust everywhere. In the midst of all the muddle sits a builder reading the paper. 3. Coming in out of the cold night to find my flat is a comfortable 23C. This warmth is partly leftovers from the morning sun and partly my neighbours' central heating.