Three Beautiful Things

1. I find myself staring fascinated by the green-purple cabbages sent in our box this week. I dreamed about drawing them last night. 2. A front door wreathed in jasmine leaves. 3. In the afternoon sunlight at the end of autumn I sit on a bench and wait to meet Louise. I spot her from a long way off -- she is at the far end of the lake, but I know her by her stride and by the colours she wears.

I love this post on Life ain't that bad: Deepawali, welcome and lit up. 1. Nibbling pieces of chocolate chip cookie. 2. There are tangerines like small suns in our vegetable box. 3. We listen to The Steppes of Thoth and spend the evening on the edge of the sofa as our heroes suffer a tidal storm in a Martian canal and are attacked by a German ironclad airship.

1. The top of town in the morning. A man stops to stare at the valley full houses that seem overlaid with tracing paper. 2. White birds crowd on a metal roof that gleams in the morning sun. 3. Nick moves to take his sandwich into the sitting room where he can catch up with the news, but thinks again and stays in the kitchen while I make my supper.

1. Looking down through an area railing and seeing sunlight coming in from the other side of the house. 2. Lego Starwars has turned us into savages -- mainly because we haven't quite got the hang of the controls yet. Every time I turn round there seems to be an explosion of Lego bodyparts, and then everyone else starts shooting. 3. Hunting for something gentle and cheerful to read, I find a Bill Bryson book.

Some new additions to the Roll of Honour: The Three R's Blog , Rabbiting and Reader's Guide . 1. Bacon pops and cracks on the stove and creeps through the flat to tell Nick it's time for breakfast. 2. A tree fern bud tightly rolled reaches for the sky, stretching and uncoiling as if it is practising garden yoga. 3. An umbrella in pure rainbow colours is taken helpfully from a note-taking wife with no spare hands and rolled and rolled by an attentive husband.

1. All the different apples laid out at the market. I love the shapes -- from long, almost pear shaped ones, to tiny round ones. And I love the colours -- yellow gold, deep red, shallow faded red, sour green, brownish russets. 2. It's mostly still, but a single blade-shaped of monbretia leaf turns over and back. 3. A trinket box reinvented as a bonbonniere because I've filled it with chocolates.

1. In a street I have passed many times, I spot a worn painted advert on the side of a Victorian house. 2. A baked potato with butter melting into it. 3. The sound of water dripping from the just-used shower on to the curtain makes me think of being covered with kisses.