1. I run into Tunbridge Wells writer and artist Erica Adams*, who I knew a long time ago before children. She's forgotten my name. "Do you still do that er... thing?"
I tell her about the tenth birthday and she is suitably impressed.
Now it's my turn. "And do you still do that er... thing in that er... magazine?"
"I got sacked." It turns out that she wrote a joke about hearing aids that offended an advertiser, who responded in print to say it WASN'T FUNNY, to which she responded by email and then she got an angry call from the editor. "I'm 82," she says. "I'm quite proud of being sacked."
I hadn't forgotten about her impish streak.
2. I load up sister-in-law Sarah's cake stand with four different sorts and warm scones left on our doorstep by the lovely Anna**. I enjoy them with the actual true Three Beautiful Things (Nick, Alec and Bettany) along with a glass of fizz.
3. I take some bubble mixture to the park to amuse Bettany while Alec chases his ball. It attracts two little boys who, watched anxiously by their parents, vie with Alec to pop the most.
* She wrote a book called The Pig and I, about a woman who keeps a child-replacement pig. It's laugh-out-loud funny, particularly the erotic scene with the tangerine.
** Anna shared her favourite beautiful thing -- it's number 3 of this post, which describes the day I met Nick again.
PS: I wrote this morning about some long term 3BTers, and I forgot to mention, of course, Whitney at Glimpses of Grace -- seven years and counting; and Rebecca who kept up her Gratitude Practices for six years.
