Three Beautiful Things

1. Sarah, our admin assistant is leaving to do some studying. When someone leaves, it makes us talk about the things we like about them. Oli and I decided that it was her sharp wit -- particularly her lightning put-downs of cheeky men, as well as her efficiency and ability to pick things up quickly. 2. The wonders of pizza. It goes in the oven. It comes out of the oven. Then I eat it. 3. Andy has come upstairs to help me finish a secret surprise for Fenella. I am polishing the proofs, and he is writing a poem. We talk a bit while we wait for his ideas to settle. I like best the moment when he goes quiet and all I can hear is scribbling. And next best I like the moment when he rather shyly announces: 'OK, it's called A poem about Fenella '.

He-who-shall-not-be-named was moved to make a film of this post . 1. A flurry of afternoon excitement caused by a fire in the bins at work. The fire marshalls let off the fire extinguisher at it, and poured lots of water in. Bet the bin men are going to love us. 2. Getting a sweet note from a lady who has used 3BT to do her travel diary. She said: 'As a life-long optimist and positive-thinking person, I find that focusing on precisely three things is an exercise in discernment.' 3. Being told I've cheered someone up.

1. Caroline coming all the way back from work to bring me in. 2. The Oast Silly Sports Day created a number of extraordinary and beautiful sights -- Ellen running to victory in the egg and spoon; people wandering round with egg all over them following the egg catching competition; Oli practising wellie wanging with a pink boot (clearly worth it, because he won by a long way) and Ed hammering home in the sack race. 3. Bananas and pineapple grilled with brown sugar.

1. Friends who ask difficult questions to make sure you know what you're doing. 2. Tumble dryers use huge amounts of energy, which seems very wasteful when clothes tend to dry themselves if you hang them up. But when the laundry pile grows so fast I can't keep up, it's very satisfying to put dirty clothes in the machine and later take them out ready for the wardrobe. 3. Completing a task that I have been putting off.

1. Getting juice from a ripe nectarine all over my hands. 2. Sharing a bottle of wine with Fenella while we plan her hen event. 3. Curling up with Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind .

1. Turning over the incidents of last night with Lou first thing; and finding the kitchen thinly spread with jam where we tried to make toast when we got home. 2. Wandering round the DIY store looking for decorating supplies that I forgot to pick up on my last two visits, I see a wooden box which I thought was too expensive yesterday at £15 has been reduced to £10. 3. Covering the hideous grime revealed by sugar soap with a coat of clean paint.

1. The way noise and clatter in coffee shops gets screened out when I am scribbling. 2. The shining brightness of my window frame after it's been painted by Katie, and the cleaness of the hall in its new decorating. 3. Lou and I were chatting at the bar in the George when an oldish ginger man came up and started talking to us. We talked to him and his friend for a bit and then weasled ourselves out of a trip to Dav's with them, claiming that we were meeting friends in the Grapevine. Thinking that they wouldn't follow us there because they would think we were lying, we went there and drank martinis -- Lou from what was probably the last martini glass in the whole of Tunbridge Wells. And then I spotted a man looking at me. When I smiled, he came over and introduced himself. Wow. I know lots of women find it annoying being randomly approached, and knock the guy back with a sharp line, or just ignore it. But for me boldness is much appreciated in a fella, specially if he has so...