Three Beautiful Things

1. My new ironing board cover. It's pink and decorated with Barbaraella-style girls posing in front of a futuristic city 2. Went for a walk with PaulV through town. We looked in through people's windows and alternately giggled about and envied their living rooms. 3. Watching fireworks from my window.

1. Instead of getting up with the alarm, I lay in the dark, snuggled deep in my bed drifting in and out of sleep. 2. My hair felt so strawish and yuck that I avoided my reflection almost all day. But I happened to glance in a mirror late afternoon and it looked perfectly all right. 3. Warming my hands on a mug of camomile tea last thing at night.

1. When there is no queue at the Post Office. 2. Found photographs . 3. Hot water bottles. My one has a red and pink striped knitted cover.

1. Came home to find my mother had brought my post over - including Mslexia - the excellent magazine for women who write. 2. Victorian-style gothic novels - I'm listening to The Mist in the Mirror by Susan Hill. So far a man has got lost in London and been frightened by a parrot. 3. Starting a new piece of cross stitch. I've designed this one myself, so I'm a bit apprehensive. But it's all part of life's great adventure - one woman, a needle and a vast tract of 12-count aida. Actually, it's about 10cm by 4cm.

1. Everyone saying how much they loved John Peel who died suddenly yesterday. Read about him on BBC Radio One and on Radio Four . His quirky Home Truths up until now has been an important part of my Saturday morning. As I pottered through the washing up or ironing or whatever, I would go from tears to laughter to hairs prickling on my neck and back again as he charmed wonderful, truth is stranger than fiction stories out of the public. I love the philosophy that it's not just celebs who are of interest. I know the programme won't be the same without him. 2. Discovering mail art on A1 Mail Art Archive . Altered envelopes. Cool. 3. When the ironing pile is not nearly as big as you thought it was.

1. Liebniz biscuits . You can bite the chocolate off. 2. I crammed a couple of garlic cloves under the chicken at the bottom of my casserole. I cooked it under a sauce of leeks, potato, onion and celery. The meat subtly absorbed the flavour of the garlic, but the sauce was not overpowered. 3. My shower was grim and now it's not because I've cleaned it.

1. Took the train down to the coast. It has rained heavily in the past few days and there was a lot of water in places where there isn't usually water, eg halfway up tree trunks. The River Rother looked fat and brown and in a hurry. 2. Sheep in a puddley field. Their reflections came and went as they wandered around. 3. Ten swans sitting in a cabbage field on Romney Marsh. There is a choice of collective nouns for swans - you can have bevy , lamentation or herd . If they are flying, they are a wedge .