Ow, sandwich and The Coral.

1. My leg muscles feel very stretched by yesterday's walk. According to Rose, the pain means they are improving somehow. I am dubious.

2. Cold ham and mango chutney in a sandwich.

3. I'm really loving The Coral's album The Invisible Invasion. There are some great sounds in the lyrics -- lots of words used for their noise value, rather than for their meaning. 'Open the door / If you dare / Venus fly trap on the stairs.' and 'Arabian sand / feel it slipping through your hands.'

Setting out, dessert and male art.

1. Going on a long walk round Tunbridge Wells -- we covered eight miles: not bad for a day's work. Highlights included the taste of chocolate; the strange rattling noise that stones make when you skitter them across thin ice; finding places called Modest Corner and Constitution Hill; discovering that the trains to Tonbridge go over a hugh viaduct with cathedral-like brick arches; and settling into a warm pub with beer and ham, egg and chips.

2. Bananas dipped in chocolate mousse.

3. The two perfect rows of knitting that PaulV added to the square lying round my flat -- he claims Sarah taught him when he was very young.

Parallel lines, string bags and b&b.

1. There is about three quarters of an inch of snow in the Grove and it is covered in sledge tracks.

2. A lady at the checkout asked me all about my string bags: how useful did I find them and where did I get them from. I try not to take plastic supermarket bags -- except when I've run out of binliners. Instead I have some string bags, which are great because they fit in my handbag; they stretch to accomodate anything from an onion to an entire week's shopping; they are easy on the hands; and they come in pretty colours, so I can match them to whatever I'm wearing (if I feel inclined). The bags I use, from The String Bag Lady, are made from jute by a ladies' fair-trade co-operative in India. The only bad thing is, the String Bag Lady is presently on a gap year. Hope she hurries home.

3. The taste of fresh bread and butter.

Softly, birches and TV.

1. The quietness of snow. I like the way it dulls sound in the forest.

2. Birch trees with snow on them.

3. Watching My family and other animals on TV. It's one of my favourite books ever -- I love it for the strange animals and for the colours in the sunlight. Seeing the sunshine on the olive trees made me forget that it was freezing midwinter outside.

So unfair, overhead and white feathers.

1. Robert sulking because he wasn't a beautiful thing yesterday, unlike Rose.

2.Sun in the tree tops.

3. In the middle of supper it started snowing.

Me first, stories for children and triadic colours.

1. Being woken by Rose because she doesn't want to be the first one to start opening her stocking.

2. A new fairy tale book. It has a terrifying picture on the front of a child hiding under a sofa on which is sitting a grotesque and toothy man brandishing an axe. This picture would be less frightening if I could find the story to which it relates and discover what happens -- because OBVIOUSLY the child doesn't get eaten. Does he?

3. Flowers from the garden. This year Daddy found some bright orange iris berries cracking out of their pods and glossy periwinkle leaves with a few mauve flowers.

Glitter, presents and stockings.

1. Great showers of glitter have fallen off my wrapping paper and now the carpet will sparkle slightly for weeks.

2. A box full of parcels.

3. Putting together Christmas stockings -- we have all been buying for each other in secret and finally on Christmas Eve all the little gifts come together.