Three Beautiful Things

1. Elizabeth serves pudding and says: 'These are blackcurrants from the garden.' 2. A festival gazed upon with longing and then put away with a sigh because money is short. Then Kim and James remember that they promised me theatre for my birthday last year ; they wonder if this is an acceptable alternative. 3. PaulV and his lurid speculation about his friends' alternative lifestyle. We decide they are probably a thruple in a threlationship.

Got a small spam problem, so I'm going to moderate comments for a while. 1. The rain has beaten rhododendron flowers to the ground. They lie everywhere in white and pink and purple piles. 2. Halfway up a cupressus hedge, for reasons of their own, are a dozen snails. While Nick waits in the rain I look closely at their deep-wrinkled flanks and their questing eye stalks. 3. Nick shows me his favourite film ever -- The African Queen . I like it, too, despite the rafting flashbacks and the leeches. I like the story of two people transcending their natures to become something better than the sum of their parts; and I have more affection than I care to admit for rough diamonds.

1. Asked to research someone to collect payment from a recalitrant bookseller, I am wary. I have images of monosyllabic people with scarred knuckles, unsavoury practitioners to a man. Instead I find professional and, I think, compassionate, people who do a task that other people don't have the skills to do for themselves. 2. Tiny rain drops soak the air and my hood. Walking up the hill in front of me is a mother towing a bawling six-year-old wearing a sparkly fairy skirt that ends in long points, each tipped with a green bobble. 3. Last thing at night, I finally get to finish reading a story in Interzone . Endra - From Memory is a magical tale of a beautiful captain who comes into port, charms a landbound official and then disappears in search of a mythical city. It's set in a place where the oceans are rising and place names are half-familiar. I've never noticed the writer, Chelsea Quinn Yarboro, before, but she's very prolific, so I reckon there are some treats in sto...

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.

There is now a Facebook group for 3BT for those interested in that sort of thing. I know some people use FB every day, and it seems a good way to keep them up-to-date with changes and excitements. Also, I'm hoping it will encourage people to chat about the 3BT way. I have also added buttons allowing you to share favourite posts. Also, I've finally updated my holiday posts -- scroll down to see them, starting here: Collector, small comforts and night journey. 1. I am tapping away at a script outline. I can hear Nick not swearing to himself as he measures up the bathroom. 2. Planning a new bathroom, and choosing the fittings. Now that we've picked out the bath and the taps, it seems possible to imagine paint and curtains. 3. In the afternoon, I get a call from long-lost Louise, who happens to be in town. So we meet up for a cup of tea.

1. There is smell of wet woods and growing things, as if the Common has drunk deeply in the rain and has let out a fragrant sigh into the sunshine. 2. At the edge of the cricket ground, on a Sunday when everyone else is playing or walking or simply looking on, a serious teenage girl sits studying from a language book. 3. Putting on a pulpy podcast and curling up on the sofa to thrill at the adventures of Doc Savage and the crimson-fingered man who is trying to kill him.

Today, being Tim and Rachel's first anniversary , it is a year since I met Nick , who in his own well-ordered way has turned my life upside down. 1. Spreading Marmite on toast for Nick. I spend more nights at his house than he does at mine, so usually it's him making breakfast for me. 2. We go to a concert in the lovely Church of King Charles The Martyr. They sing Vaughn Williams' Linden Lea , which makes me feel as if I've made the right choice in my life with regards to not dreading 'peevish masters'. 3. Nick sits me down on the sofa and presents me with a beautiful pair of embroidery scissors -- here's a man who has been paying attention, because only a couple of weeks ago I bored him rigid with a Maison Sajou embroidery catalogue. He laughs when I solemnly hand him a penny to make it a purchase, rather than a bladed gift that might cut our love.