Three Beautiful Things

1. To  my surprise, Alec asks to do painting. It keeps him and his friend occupied while I get lunch, though it keeps us mothers on our toes as well -- breaking up fights, dishing out paper and opening paint pots. Artwork drying on the washing line 2. To sit next to my mother (who is holding Bettany) and do a little writing. 3. I report to Nick about our day: '...and first thing we went to Sankey's for some fish and Alec walked very nicely all the way there and he asked if we could buy a lobster-' 'Yes, he'd been looking forward to that,' says Nick. I'd told Alec we were going to the fishmongers as soon as we woke up -- he doesn't like to be hurried into outings so I try to let him know what we're doing each day. Apparently they'd been chatting about it in the bathroom while Nick got dressed.

1. We have got into the habit of plunking Alec in front of the TV in the mornings. It's a questionable habit but it gives me the space I need to bub Bettany, eat breakfast and get dressed. However, I make sure that I am on the sofa next to him for Q Pootle 5 , a cartoon about chubby aliens on a rather lovely desert planet. It's a landscape of crashed space junk, craters, scrapyards and mineral lakes with spots of lush vegetation. I never get tired of looking at it (and I never get tired of cuddling Alec and discussing the plot). 2. Alec is much less wayward when we go out walking -- it is now possible to fit in a morning errand. We porgle down to Oxfam Books to pick up a paperback that's come to the end of the road. I'm going to grow mushrooms on it. 3. I know I loved Mrs Tiggywinkle as a child, but I'd forgotten why. On the last page Beatrix Potter claims to have seen the little door in the hillside, and now I come to read it again I definitely remember being d...

1. Maggie solemnly hands me a couple of bright yellow daisy petals. 'These are for baby Bettany.' 2. 'I think you're very brave bringing both of them out,' says the nurse. 3. 'Is everything enjoyable?' asks the waiter. I look across the table at Alec nibbling on a piece of garlic bread and down at Bettany nursing away and at my pizza with Parma ham and rocket and I say with conviction 'Yes it is.'

1. A friend captions a photo with a remark about the air holding a touch of the beginning of the end of summer. It's an observation that I like very much and it comes to mind when I open the back door at breakfast time and see a fine veil of mist beyond the back wall. 2. Katie comes to help at lunch. She brings us ice creams as well as good company and an extra pair of hands. 3. For the sour-faced ladies ranged along the Pantiles like bitter fruits on a high wall I have a defiant smile as I walk past with my raging toddler straining at the pushchair straps.

1. During their last visit Grandad commented that Alec had picked up lots of 'posh talk'. If only he could hear the lad today as he peppers his sentences liberally with 'Awright'. 'You go upstairs, awright, and you say "halp halp", awright, and I rescue you, awright.' 2. At the end of a tough day Nick remarks that it won't be long before they go off to university. I laugh bitterly and give him a short lecture on some of the phonecalls one gets from student children. A treble voice in the corner of the kitchen pipes up, 'Dad, I been arrested. Dad, need more money.' 3. To look down at the Bundle-oo in my lap and see a large, bright-eyed smile. She's changed so much in the last few weeks. I sometimes look at her face at the end of a feed and think that she's grown since I put her on.

1. A cousin comes with cakes and spends the day making Alec shriek with laughter. 2. The ring of sparkling dew drops on the cut face of my homegrown cucumber. 3. There is a jazz festival on the Pantiles this weekend. Entire families -- from grandmothers like little white birds to fat toddlers surrounded by bright plastic cups and spoons -- sit at the tables outside Woods and The Grey Lady and the new hotel.

1. After lunch we stand in the park, me, Katie and Sarah, and watch our increasingly large babies running around on the grass. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were the ones running round on the grass. 2. Alec and I scamper home through the downpour. Alec in his shiny blue boots and rain suit is intrigued by this unfamiliar drenched world. 'Is de car doin' a widdle?' 'Where'd the water going?' 'What dat noise?' 3. To gulp down a glass of water after a salty meal.