Three Beautiful Things

Four things today. No special reason, except that I've been having fun. 1. A wonderful flatmate who does Saturday morning tasks so I can further my writing career. 2. A dubious drink made of warm rum and avocaat topped with whipped cream. It is drunk through a straw so you can fully appreciate the mixture of hot and cold. 3. I comment that there are a lot of familiar songs on Lou's iPod. This is because we both own the Empire Records soundtrack. We decide that this is a film that needs watching tonight. 4. Whipping cream and making white sauce -- and showing Lou the miraculous transformations that occur when doing these things.

1. Working on a website, I know that users often imagine that everything is automated. They wonder why when they ask for something at 5pm on a Friday, it doesn't get done until Monday morning. So 'cheers' to Fictionwise for processing a request to use Paypal within a couple of hours at the weekend. 2. Lou and I are shopping. We find a pair of shorts that we both want, but there's only one left. Lou lets me have it. 3. Laputa: The Castle in the Sky . Another tale of wonderful flight from Studio Ghibli, Laputa tells of an orphan boy who catches a girl floating down from the sky on the power of a strange amulet. Sky pirates and the army are chasing the girl because they believe she can lead them to the treasures of Laputa. The animation is sophisticated and beautiful -- my favourite scenes were the flapter chases, the constellation-like crystals in the darkness of the mines, and the floating cubes that powered the castle.

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...

1. A couple walking up Madeira Park fencing with pieces of dowel. 2. Exploring a new bit of woodland with Lou. 3. The BBC recently did a short feature on local goths, which included the presenter dressing up to show how the look is achieved. The sample goth used in the programme explained that he had lent the presenter a pair of trousers, and they hadn't fitted over his paunch. But luckily the gaping fly was artfully hidden under a frilly shirt.

1. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named's new PG chimp. It is knitted in grey-green cotton and stuffed with beans. Being quite weighty, it adds a frisson of danger to the whale game (an office amusement in which soft toys are thrown into the ceiling fan causing howls of laugher when they fly off in unpredictable directions. Further points are awarded if the boss comes in). 2. The sound of lamb stock boiling on the stove. 3. The sound of Katie and Lou chatting in the living room.

1. Sitting up in bed with Lou drinking tea and chatting vaguely as we read magazines. 2. Climbing up a hunting tower to get a different perspective on the woods. 3. A pine tree has fallen recently. The trunk has shattered like matchwood and the clearing smells of resin.

1. Sitting on trains and buses listening to snippets of conversations: "Listen, mum, don't give people my number. I'm sortin' myself out. You know how it is when you are tryin' to sort yourself out." And "Lou, man, she 'ad a tache, like she'd just finished a cappucino." And "...that's the trouble with going to a posh school: always trying to be better than you are. Not like us working class." 2. Ellie likes knock-knock jokes, and has a creaky Scottish voice for the 'Who's there?' line. My stock is soon exhausted, but that's OK, because she thinks they're just as funny the second time round. I also heard a new one: Knock knock! Who's there? Mandy. Mandy who? Mandy lifeboats: we're sinking. 3. Ellie, Niamh and I are talking about a hornbeam in the garden, and Niamh asks me: "Are you the one who's got a book coming out?"

1. The smell of rosemary burning under the grill. 2. I call Lou to see if she's going to salsa. Secretly, I hope she's not because I'm tired and cross. She doesn't want to go either; so we decide we better had go. As it happens, the lesson is great, with a couple of fun men to dance with; and we come out feeling much more cheerful. 3. Before going to bed, I need to race down the draughty hall and into the icy cold kitchen to fill my hotwater bottle. Still damp from my shower, I sit on the edge of the bed to ponder this epic journey. As I lean back, my hand finds something warm -- Katie has done it all for me.

1. Having a few quiet moments to sit with Lou in shady Embankment Gardens enjoying the wallflowers and tulips and watching families with small children having fun in one of London's green space. 2. Tea at the Savoy Hotel -- particularly the rose scented green tea and the way the cake plate kept on being refilled with chestnut puree choux buns decorated with gold leaf. 3. When I started going to pole dancing classes, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named made me a CD of appropriate music, including a track called Patricia the Stripper (to tremendous applause she took off her drawers), which quickly became one of my favourites. Katie's birthday celebrations took us to a burlesque club -- Madame Jojo's -- and Patricia was one of the songs they performed. 4. My flatmate Katie is 30, so she is the fourth beautiful thing today. We've been friends for just about 19 years now, which is quite an achievement (on her part, anyway). So here's to Katie at 30.

1. Finding the boots that I have needed since October in a sale with 25 per cent off. They are mid-calf high and made of scuffed brown leather and they have lacing up the front. I like this because I have slender ankles, so boots often don't fit as they should. The lacing means I get to show them off to the best advantage. 2.Katie and Lou agreeing that when I drink when I'm tired I stare off into space. 3. Every drunk we passed in the street wished us a happy Christmas.

1. Douglas for his luxurious car and his clockwork reliability at providing lifts into work. 2. Coming into work early as the rising sun turns the sky salmon pink. 3. Lou's help made packing up the breakables a simple and pleasant task.

1. He-who-shall-not-be-named driving me all the way home from work so I could turn the grill off. And hardly teasing me at all about this. We are thinking of something I can do to return the favour. 2. Changeable weather -- distant showers blowing in across the fields; the sun lighting up the raindrops on yellow oak leaves and a rainbow over the barn. 3. Phonecalls to and from: My grandmother; Katie; Claire M; Rosey; Lou and Rosey again. We were gossipping; organising; catching up and checking up.

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. Waking up before the alarm goes off so that I can ease into the day without the help of news about Israel and Palastine. 2. Finding cheap Kentish strawberries (all shapes and sizes, apparently) that had been reduced, and then finding expensive Hertfordshire strawberries that had been reduced to the same price. 3. A film that leaves you with a whole mouthful of questions -- Lou and I watched the Lakehouse , a story of lovers separated by two years.

1. Moving to a seat in the window and finding that the light is much better 2. The marvellousness of Deliza's bump -- not only does it contain a baby, but it also doesn't show from the back, or if you look at her straight on. 3. Experimental cookery -- assisted by Lou I made knuckle sandwiches, as described in Nanny Ogg's Cookbook . They were nice, but I don't think the effort and the energy used in preparing a pig's trotter justifies the tablespoon of meat that I wrested from it. The book suggests that such fayre is poor man's food, and that you are better off getting a dinner invitation from the rich man.

1. Stopping to buy a bag of Kent cherries on the way home from work. 2. A girl we used to know quite well walks into the courtyard where we are enjoying an evening drink. We wave at her and say hi. She holds up one finger and then walks off, returning shortly with her friends. They sit down on the other side of the garden. We can see her watching us, but she doesn't come over or wave or even smile. I can't say I specially like being 'cut' like this... but the righteous indignation of 'Well! What on earth is her problem?' is rather satisfying; and then we made ourselves feel even better by forgiving her with: 'maybe she didn't have her glasses on. Or she could have been really drunk.' 3. If I was Lou, my beautiful thing would be the sight of me trying to put a duvet cover on sideways after a few too many glasses of wine.

1. Going into the library and finding parts two and three of a trilogy I was rather enjoying. Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynd Trilogy is a romance set in a world where brownies live in people's kitchens and mischievous spirits steal babies and people are can be magically bound by fairytale promises. She plunders a huge range of folktales, often weaving them into the plot, and characters regularly down tools for a little storytelling. I also love the way she describes the clothes and the food and the landscapes. Everything is rich and the colours are so vivid that it's like wandering into a Preraphaelite picture. 2. Sitting in the park with a book because there is no washing up there. 3. Lou's mum's lemon and lime icecream. It is the most refreshing thing ever.

1. A book all about Thessaly. She’s one of my favourite Sandman characters, being ruthless, clever and in deep denial about her softer side. Thessaly: Witch for Hire sees the ghost who loves her land her in deep trouble. He has taken on contracts to kill monsters, which he fulfils by sending them after Thessaly. 2. Seeing Rob and Lou. Much has changed in my absence. Rob, previously vegetarian, has taken up meat and become a sausage fanatic. 3. While we eat dinner and catch up, it starts to snow. The flakes are like huge feathers -- perhaps someone is plumping up the clouds. When we go out to the car, they land with big, wet splats on us, sticking to our clothes and melting down our necks.

1. When your bed is exactly the right warmness. 2. The sunsets at this time of year are fantastic. Lower sky the colour of smoked salmon with raggy slate grey clouds slowly transforming into indigo via an almost-green on the way. 3. Collecting the girls together to help with a task that occupies your hands and leaves your mind free. I imagine this is what the quilting bees in Katy and Anne of Green Gables must have been like. The task - making blank papier mache masks for a workshop - would have been exhausting, stressful and dull if I'd done it alone. With Lou and Nicky there to gossip to it flew by, and before I knew it there were 12 balloon heads hanging up to dry and it was 10pm.

1. Standing outside the loos in the restaurant where we had lunch was a wardrobe painted with the four seasons. Each one featured a mother and a child. In spring, summer and autumn the fat child is doing not much, but in winter it is poking wood into the stove. 2. Lou and I got back to the table to find that Rob had made friends with an English man who now lived in Austria. We chatted away for a bit about languages and he told us how he had once left his non-German speaking mother in his Vienna apartment. 'The cleaning lady's coming, but she doesn't speak English. You'll be all right won't you?' And off he went to work. When he returned that night, he asked his mother how her day had been. 'What a nice cleaning lady you have. But what a pity about her brother and his lung cancer.' So they had found a way to communicate after all. 3. The feeling of relief when you take off your stiff, too hot, too cold, rubby, achy ski boots for the very last time and sli...