Three Beautiful Things

1. He takes a moment to show us the long soil sample he has just taken before bouncing off again in his speedy buggy. Later, his truck, with the buggy loaded on the back, whooshes past the high street pub where we are having lunch. 2. There are mycena mushrooms tan and brown and ghostly pale trooping close to the earth, easily missed, but hard not to notice once you've got your eye in -- but best of all I like the hand-sized parasols that we can see from the far size of the field.  3. Standing on a bridge and listening to the water of the Teise, a proper Weald stream, running over black-stained sandstone under arching hazels.

1. The sumac tree flames red against the grey roofs of the ugly terrace up the hill. 2. A front garden wall covered in conkers accumulated by someone who can't help picking them up. 3. We didn't quite get to the top of the park in time to see the sun passing the horizon -- but the sky tinting into dusk is a pleasure as always, and we feel better for going out.

1. It's half term and the clocks have just changed, so we're allowed to sleep a little later. 2. No one can remember making this beef rendang that I've found in the freezer -- but it is delicious, well flavoured with fat and all kinds of vegetables, as if someone was emptying the fridge to make it. 3. I start a brand new pad for my schedule list. I use Rhodia pads, and the covers are scored so that they fold back on themselves in a way that is so satisfying.

1. After two days of being blown and drenched and shaken by a pair of storms, a morning with clear blue sky. 2. I have no answer to his question about why the banana slices in our rice pudding have turned purple. 3. I remember to light all the candles as our program begins, and the room as a whole is very warm and cosy because blankets have drifted in like falling leaves.

1. A coal tit quickly checks something in the acer tree, glares at me and is away. 2. One of those train guards who goes off-script, playing with the familiar announcements for his own  satisfaction and amusement (and mine, too). 3. In the station, two mums are waiting with a few small children, who are (as Alec's nursery diary would have put it) enjoying their voices in the echoing space. 

1. Sparrows tumble in and out of the sky on unknowable little brown bird business. 2. I hack out a crisp quarter slice out of a red cabbage head and peer within to admire the white on purple curlicues. 3. At the end of the day, there is a heavy autumn duvet and the comfort of Naomi Alderman's memoir  crossed with scientific thriller The Strangers.