Three Beautiful Things

1. We pass boys in blazers walking home from the grammar school. The first years are tiny under their huge rucksacks. Then I look at Alec in his pram and they seem like giants. 2. On a grey day of blurry rain, the bright fresh colours of fruit and vegetables in the cavernous green grocers are very appealing. 3. While I am feeding Alec, Nick brings my cake in so I can see if it is properly browned. 4. There was a romanesco cauliflower in our veggie box. We spend some time after supper admiring its mathematical spirals and pinnacles. Picture from Stock.xchng

1. Alec wakes from his post-mid-morning-feed stupor and gives me a selection of wide, gummy smiles. 2. A new draught excluder keeps out prying fingers of cold air. 3. This round steak and stout pie is as cheerful as the sun on a day that promises fine weather.

1. "You know you can click this lever and your front wheels will swivel, don't you," says the registrar, once Alec is a proper person. She kneels down (in her respectful, ceremonial black trousers) and shows us. We have been perambulating around for three weeks quite unaware that we had swivelling wheels. "It makes a real difference to the handling," says Nick. 2. The park is running and gurgling with streaming rainwater. Our shoes are damp (although we've avoided walking in puddles), and so is the bag of books and certificates from the register office (although I held it tight against myself all the way home). We shut the front door and promise we are not going out again. 3. "Seven minutes," says Nick. This is the time it took him to walk to the chippie, buy chips and mushy peas, and come home again.

My cousin Amy shares a beautiful thing: "Nipping down to the corner shop for some washing up sponges after having been confined to the house for two days. It's really windy and I become aware of just how much air there is for me to breathe in! I gulp in as much as I can on the two-minute walk." 1. We take Alec to see his paternal grandparents for the first time. Nana chats to him in baby talk, and tells us that she used to comfort Nicholas with some sugar in a handkerchief: "Just half a teaspoonful and we boiled and boiled the handkerchief." 2. Alec's aunt Sarah cradles him calmly and capably and brings us news about her own grandchildren. 3. Nick brings from the oven a substantial pudding bubbling with black treacle.

1. A card comes from Nick's sister, niece and great nephews. Dylan, who is just about to start school, has embellished the envelope with pencilled letters, diligently copied from our address. 2. The health visitor encourages us to help Alec's wind by giving him a finger to suck between meals. We'd already been doing that, but didn't want to admit it in case it was the wrong thing to do. 3. A mouthful of dark chocolate -- according to Fenella it will make my milk taste better for Alec.

1. Nick takes me out for breakfast -- at 10am the streets are Sunday silent and the air is so cold and still that it feels as if we are watching the world through glass. 2. Hot chocolate with a peak of foam on top and flecks of chocolate melting into it. 3. He calls down from the attic: "Darling wife, I can track our pizza on-line!"

Katie has posted a picture of the blanket she made for my increasingly spoilt baby . 1. No-one is getting much sleep at the moment -- I can't turn over in my sleep any more, and I can't sleep in one position for very long. I whisper my apologies to Nick as I make another awkward turn to get back into his arms. He says: "You're not being annoying -- you're being snuggly." 2. There are malted milks on the biscuit plate at yoga. 3. My beautician tells me to treasure the night feeds -- "When the moon is shining through the window, and it's just the two of you, and they open their eyes and look up... It's so, so special."

Today is our first wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been a year already. I don't think I've ever been more content in my life. We'll be returning to the hotel where we tied the knot later on today for afternoon tea. Nick and I have been so touched by all the love and support we've had from the people close to us, and from people who haven't met us face-to-face. I love this picture because when I saw it, it brought home how much effort people made to come to our wedding, and also the fact that they cared enough about the memory of it that they wanted to take pictures. 1. The anniversary itself is on Sunday, but we've sort of stretched out the celebrations across the whole weekend. Nick brings flowers back from town. He says he picked this bunch "because the white ones reminded me of the white roses in your wedding bouquet." The white ones turn out to be ornamental cabbages -- creamy white, flushed mauve in the centre with tiny ...

1. The florists who did our wedding have the most fantastic winter window display -- glass round-bottomed flasks, each containing a single white exotic flower, suspended on fishing line and surrounded by fake snow and silver glitter. 2. Using the internet to cut a swathe through the Christmas shopping. 3. Nick takes over supper, turning sausages and mashing potatoes and carrots while I catch up with my emails.

1. To find a spoonful of dulce de leche in the middle of my banana muffin. 2. She sleeps on under hair like dandelion fluff. 3. Some NCT graduates have been invited to bring their babies to our class. We pepper them with questions about hospital bags and nappies. "Did you cry?" challenges one of the dads. "Yes," says the other.

1. Katherine (who took our wedding pictures) brings us a beautiful scarlet snow suit to bundle our baby in. 2. The butcher was right -- we didn't need to do anything (except keep the joint dry) to get good crackling. 3. We watch Mark Gatiss' First Men in the Moon  -- his naive Cavor was excellent, and I loved the schoolboyish glee at their first steps on the moon. I've also been having some fun getting my head round cavorite and its possible applications.

1. I pick up from the library  What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing  which I have seen recommended over and over again on parenting sites. I am hoping it will help me lay to rest some of the haunting remarks I've heard from my friends about empty days spent doing "nothing". 2. Baby Badger has been feeling very heavy lately, and really going for it with the Braxton Hicks contractions. It's so good to sit down for a few minutes, and whenever we are out, I'm constantly looking round for a bench! 3. Nick makes a huge pie -- we eat very late, but it's very good, full of tasty steak and kidney and juicy mushrooms.

1. I'm still in my dressing gown because I couldn't sleep until it was time to get up. She says: "Oh, it's because Baby Badger wanted to play." I hadn't thought of it like that... all the disrupted sleep could be my body's way of adjusting to the new hours I will be keeping. 2. Euro-biscuits -- I love those tempting multi-lingual packets in Lidl with their promises of almonds and gingerbread and chocolate. 3. Games night again -- the last one before Baby Badger. It's strange to say good bye to people and to say: "Next time we see you, we'll have a baby."

Natalie commented the other day to say that she has started her own 3BT blog . Go Natalie! 1. We think we should probably get up. I guess that it must be at least lunchtime. It turns out that it's only twenty to eleven. 2. Nick's dad is still thrilled with the results of his cataract operation -- "The curtains when I woke up the morning after. All those reds and greens." Plus he is thoroughly enjoying the sharing of his gory eye surgery story. Now he has gout -- but it seems that even this cloud has a silver lining. He can fit into a pair of shoes (the colour of a freshly picked up conker) that were previously too big. "They're handmade, look, beautiful. We found them in a charity shop for £6." 3. "This is going to be more of an amuse bouche than a bowl of soup," says Nick looking anxiously at the single serving that is going to have to do for two of us. But there's some cream that needs finishing, and leftover cold potatoes in ...

1. At the farmer's market, the fishmonger's assistant has transformed from a sullen teenager to a brisk, cheerful stallholder. He says to Nick: "This is a recipe for you, Sir -- beer batter. The beer needs to be very cold and fizzy." 2. The windows in Hoopers department store are now hidden behind red curtains. A notice announces that all will be revealed on November 6. Every year, they borrow ballet costumes for a magical Christmas display . We run into Katie on the way down the hill, and she speculates on this year's theme -- Peter Pan, she reckons. 3. A rapid web search reveals that beer batter should be the consistency of emulsion paint. I tell Nick, and point him towards a bowl, a whisk and a large pan. The fish is delicious -- crisp and golden brown.

1. There is quite a lot of lemon curd left in the bottom of the bowl -- not enough to put in a jar; but enough to go on top of my yoghurt at lunchtime. 2. Downton Abbey -- we watched Sunday's episode, with its jaw-dropping I-did-not-see-that-coming plot twist. 3. I wish I could remember who suggested Barbara Pym's books -- I picked up Jane and Prudence and I think it's wonderful - a steely account of 1950s middle class match-making.. The quote on the cover is from Philip Larkin, who lays aside his curmudgeonly cynicism to say that he'd rather read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen. Lucky, lucky Barbara Pym.

1. The park keepers are clearing the beds in the park. The bare brown earth is as pleasing as the bright bedding plants. Later, I come across them doing the same outside the town hall. The planting was ornamental vegetables. Someone has put the red stemmed chard to one side, perhaps for their dinner. 2. I get myself a muffin and a hot chocolate and write a few thank you cards. 3. She comes round with a book I might like, a deep red cyclamen and (as someone who has been there, done that) lots and lots of reassurance about work.

1. These plums are disappointing. I bake them into Delia's oat and plum slices , which are not. 2. I have my doubts about the replacement plums, too. They are deep aubergine purple -- some of them -- but streaked and shaded with green as if they might not be quite ripe. I pull one out of my shopping bag on the way home. Very sweet, very juicy and very plummy. 3. This piece is pushing the boundaries of music. It's pushing the boundaries of what a clarinet can do, with haunting polyphonics and hysterical screeches. Baby Badger reacts with some hefty kicks that are visible through my dress. " Your first concert ," whispers Dad proudly.

1. From the window behind my desk, I catch the cyclist I saw riding off yesterday at 5pm locking his bike to the pay and display machine. 2. Shaking an apple to hear the pips (that no-one has ever seen) rattle. 3. Beans on toast: always there when you're working too hard to cook.

1. A man smoking a pipe walks past the top of the road. When I come to turn left, I can still smell his burnt sugar tobacco. 2. The children come down to see what this dinner party is about, and you can see their parents' expressions and manners flickering in their faces. 3. Warm, dark brownies (two squares are missing from the tin) and ice cream.