Red coat, quality of light and in the old days.

1. Seeing a friend's bright red coat at the far end of the street.

2. Yellow gold light has hit the building opposite -- I feel as if I have been greeted with a huge smile.

3. We go to a lecture on what the Weald would have been like in the Cretaceous, when Tunbridge Wells Museum's iguanadon would have been alive. Swampy, apparently. The lecturer puts up a picture of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and says rather sadly: "I've never been there, but I'm told that's what it would have been like." I have been there -- so all comes to life for me. I can imagine the wet heat, and the forests of horsetails growing half in, half out of the water where the dinosaurs come down to drink.

Trainees, open eye and last of the light.

1. Two guide dog puppies (long legs and big paws) in the shopping centre. The yellow one watches the tip of a furled umbrella carried by a woman walking past. He tries so hard to leave it, but at last can't resist having a chew. The black dog fails by stretching up to grab a shopping bag.

2. We are doing self-portraits in art. I liked drawing a practice eye and suddenly finding that it was looking at me.

3. Nick is not amused when I call him away from his baseball to walk back up the hill and look at the sunset. 'I've been walking down this road for 20 years. I know about the sunsets.' But this one is particularly good -- the edges of the clouds shine as if they have been heated to white hot.

It's time, coming through and all the good things.

1. The giant hornbeam tree that shades the street says -- and the saplings in the hedge agree -- that it's time to start putting out pleated leaves.

2. The whole two miles home is out of the sun -- except where a street heading west lets the red-gold light through to warm the baptist chapel.

3. A parcel comes, a book which one of you readers thinks I would like. It's about affirmations, and it reminds me (as do all your comments, and the growing list of followers) of all the good things I get from writing three beautiful things each day.

Bread, sunset and green tea.

1. Pam sends fluffy yellow puris to the table. I sneak out to the kitchen to see her stretching and rolling the dough and frying them so they puff up like clouds.

2. It's hard to resent delays and a snarled journey when the sun is setting orange in a grey sky.

3. Finding a burnt sugar note in my green tea.

Leaving, alert and finding.

1. End of work. We scatter into the afternoon like startled birds.

2. I wouldn't have run outside to look if the green sky and gilded clouds hadn't been reflected in the windows opposite.

3. Art class: There is a raven hiding in this piece of cartridge paper.

Not catching the sunrise, clothing and doing it.

1. We wake late on midwinter, and to sleepy Nick's surprise, I am out of the door a moment later, buttoning my coat over my pyjamas as I run up the still silent street to catch a sunrise that happened 20 minutes before.

2. My mother hands me a paper bag. 'I've bought you an outfit.' It's a graphite grey and blackcurrant pink dress with a matching cardigan. I love the colours immediately.

3. A heavy, leathery guilt slug has been lying across my legs because there are letters I have not written. The longer I leave this, the heavier the slug, and the more difficult the writing becomes. I sit down, and I do it. That feels good.

Baby face, sunset and eight-legged beast.

1. On my way to work: Through the window of a basement flat I see a mother in a mauve dressing gown sitting at her kitchen table, her baby in a highchair opposite.

2. Just after 4pm, I slip away from my desk to find a window that faces west. In these short days, I can watch dawn and dusk without hardship.

3. We scare off Tim's giant spider and he takes it back into his monster box with a a satisfying vrrrring noise to represent it zipping back up to the ceiling.

Surprise, setting of the sun and lost in a book.

1. Quite unexpectedly, finding the book I want in the wrong section of the bookshop.

2. The red sunlight hits a metal light fitting and bounces all around the room. We watch as it changes colour. I walk around the park once the sun has gone behind the houses and enjoy the golden light. Later, I sit at my computer catching up with work and think how lucky I am to have a view of the western sky. I admire the black roofline spiked with chimneys and go back to my work. When I look up again, the lower sky is a richer orange, and the line where the grey upper night sky begins has dropped a little. I wonder a little at the orange light shining through the holes in a chimney pot, and turn back to the screen. Work continues this way until the sky is dark.

3. Sitting in bed with a book so thrilling that I don't even notice how cold I am and how late it has become.

Where are my sunnies, spring is coming and going down.

1. Walking out of the house and wishing I had my sunglasses on.

2. Birds sitting in blossom trees with their feathers fluffed up. And where the sun had got into the trees, there were birds singing.

3. As I leave work, the sun is still well above the horizon, but it is showing red gold through gaps in the clouds.

Snow day, lighting effects and first shoulder stand.

1. Waking up to find that in the night without a sound, the world has filled with snow.

2. The snow clouds create a wonderful sunset. We watch not so much the western sky, but the woods in the east. The bare branches turn orange and then pink and then black as the sun goes down. And when we come to leave work at 5pm, it's still -- just about -- light.

3. A new lady in my yoga class giggling to herself as she does a shoulder stand against the wall. It is a bit of an absurd sight -- a line of people lying with their legs and hips pressed against the wall.

Frost, sunlight and aid.

1. Dark green holly leaves edged with a rime of frost; and in the window, frosted cobwebs have been arousing wonder.

2. Watching sunlight move across the office as the day progresses. It turns from orange at sunrise, to pale yellow, to pink at sunset. As the sun sinks, on the hills to the east of the office, a high window in a house hidden by the woods reflects a little spark of the sunset.

3. In exchange for dinner, Andy comes round to get things off top shelves, laugh at my shoes and help me deal with more frightening items hidden in dark cupboards and high places.

Marmalade, going down and dark.

1. Hilary brings a marmalade cake into work. We eat it for elevensies at 9.45am and then again for elevensies at 11am.

2. The sunset call. At this time of year, at around 4.20pm, one of the people sitting on the west-facing desks will say: 'Look at the sky!' and we all run to the windows -- or out into the carpark if it's an especially good one -- to admire the orange and red and pink stained sky.

3. Proper darkness -- living in a town I don't often see proper, pitch black, can't see my hand in front of my face. I grew up in the countryside, and I really miss it. However, now that the nights have drawn in and we never leave work, which is in the middle of nowhere, before nightfall, my darkness craving is satisfied.

House in order, been here before and reflection.

I've posted on One-at-all. That is all.

1. Feeling that my blog housekeeping is under control... if only the same could be said for real housekeeping.

2. While listening to a radio play, getting a very strong mental picture from it. Then I realise that the picture is the cover of the book version that I read when I was 13. The Blade of the Poisoner is on Radio 7 this week. The story is the efforts of band of adventurers to save a boy marked by a poisoned blade. The scratch will kill him in a month unless... unless... my memory doesn't go back that far, but I'm sure it involves a disparate band on a mission apparently doomed to fail through a lavish fantasy landscape, all the while pursued by the Poisoner, his stupid guards and their trained spiders.

3. I know there is a wonderful sunset visible from the back window on the landing because the white walls of the buildings over the street from the window in my flat take on a warm pinkish glow.

Supporters, readers, spectrum and stars.

1. The crowd that gathered to watch us having our windscreen replaced -- a seller of tools, a lady collecting for a charity and various windscreen mending groupies.

2. Finding a bookshop that sold cheap Penguin classics -- I got Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Moonfleet. I’ve also seen Wind in the Willows knocking about and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim.

By the end of the trip many of us had read Wind in the Willows, encouraged by Rob’s enthusiastic quotings of Mr Toad’s boastful song and perhaps also by Arusha Alex; Rob and I were groaning ‘The horror, the horror’ to signal our fellowship in Heart of Darkness; and Iris and I were disagreeing about the merits of Moonfleet. Wayne had also read some of Andersen while he was having malaria. It’s probably not the most reassuring fever reading, as a recurring theme is talking kitchen utensils.

3. The windscreen mending meant we really had to cane it down the dirt road to the houseboat on Lake Kariba. Stine spotted a strange cloud rainbow -- we spent half an hour squatting on the floor trying to get a better look at it while Wayne raced the truck along the road. I thought it was a sundog, but looking at Atmospheric Optics it might have been iridescent clouds.

4. Watching the stars from the houseboat -- I’ve seen the Southern Cross for the first time.

Ilongwe to Sinasongwe, Lake Kariba, Zambia

Potting, shorter nights and horizon.

1. Those really satisfying shots at pool -- the one where you hit the white most carefully and it just tucks your ball into the pocket; or the one where you give it a good wallop and it smacks the ball you were aiming for right where you wanted it; or best of all, the one that you don't expect to do anything, but then, just as your oponent is about to take his turn, a ball hit on the rebound falls into a pocket.

2. Coming out of work and discovering that it's still -- only just -- light.

3. When the sunset is pink and the clouds are dark and raggy.

Green road, autumn sunset and stars.

1. One of those moments of complete silence on a green road between two fields.

2. An autumn sunset that had us all hanging out of the windows.

3. Two bright planets appearing as the sky turns dark.

Low sun, orange and coffee.

1. Low November sun slanting through a wood with pine needles, beech leaves and autumn bracken on the ground.

2. A sunset that turned the sky the colour of the heart of a log fire.

3. Caroline sharing the smell of a newly opened jar of coffee with me.

Lost to view, newtling and pink.

1. Back in 1987, great swathes of English woodland were flattened by a freak storm. We used to climb to the top of Starvegoose bank in Bedgebury Forest to look out at the view. You could see out across the valley to Goudhurst. Yesterday, we climbed up and the trees have grown so much that you can't see anything. I don't suppose there'll be another storm in my lifetime, so I shall be able to boast to my children about seeing the view.

2. Spotted an eft in a tiny pond. An eft is a baby newt. They look like the little dagger marks used to indicate footnotes; or one of Tove Jansson's hattifatteners.

3. Sunset changed the light in the valley so that the pink geraniums by the front door seemed to glow.

Jackets off, Mediterranean and way out west.

1. The way a cooked beetroot's skin just slips off.

2. Bread and olive oil.

3. At 7.30pm PaulV turns up wondering if I will accompany him on a job, leaving in five minutes. Since it's at an outdoor concert, and we'll be travelling west on a warm evening with a thrilling sunset, I say yes.

Yah, last of the sun and sickle moon.

1. A very little girl with red cheeks and very blue eyes attacking a fierce Taz balloon before it attacked her.

2. Black clouds had been racing across the sky all afternoon but just before sunset they cleared covering the crowd with a long, low light.

3. For REM's very last song they turned the camera on the sickle moon and the screen was so high res that we could see the craters.