Sense of scale, treasure house and checking the colour.

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

Migrants, godfather and parsnips.

1. The piles of leaves in the park (I saw the groundsman with the leaf blower on Friday) might be herds of shaggy creatures migrating so slowly that it's impossible to see them move without a time lapse camera.

2. Tim and Rachel come for tea -- we have an important question to ask Tim. Since it's his fault that Alec is here at all, we hope he will stand as godfather. He is very pleased, and says yes. We've also asked my brother, and Nick's boss Charlotte has agreed to be godmother, so whatever befalls Alec in the future, he'll have a selection of wiser heads than ours to turn to.

3. Nick's honey roast parsnips.

Touch, nappyload and walking in puddles.

1. A lady with a white stick comes into the waiting room. The other patient and the receptionist tell her about Alec. "Oh I wish I could see you better," she says, and comments on his hair. I offer her his head to stroke, which she likes very much.

2. The osteopath says Alec is a lovely patient. This is after our little boy filled his nappy twice during the appointment. The second was so fulsome that the receptionist had to bring us a basin of water.

3. A girl on her way home from school walks carefully and deliberately through two puddles.

Keep talking, smoker and parcel postman.

Drew has posted three beautiful things over at Panic I'm Nearly 30. Do let me know if you write your own beautiful things -- despite all the upheavals, and my current obsession with one particular baby, I am still interested to hear the best things about people's days.

1. I like the way whenever my chiropractor does an even slightly painful adjustment (which is very rarely) she says: "Still speaking to me?"

2. The automatic doors flap open. And shut. She stands just out of the rain hunched into her collar. Then her head pops up and she sets off, trailing a wisp of cigarette smoke the exact colour of her long blue coat.

3. A very wet and miserable postman brings a parcel during lunch. It's addressed to Nick, and he won't open it until he's finished eating, by which time I am nearly dying from curiosity. It's a gift from his work -- a hat box of bits for a baby boy, including a blue fleece blanket, a rattling rabbit, and a tiny pair of shoes.

What we miss, Christmas shopping and tea talk.

1. "Cheese. Runny cheese." "Stilton." The NCT mums are anticipating the births of their babies.

2. A large parcel has arrived for Nick. He says it's a present from Baby Badger to its dad. I put it away until Christmas.

3. A mug of cranberry and sanguinello tea and a quick catch-up with Katie.

Keep in touch, captured and in the window.

Wow, it's photographarama today. First, two beautiful things from my mother.

a. Today a white van came rattling down the track and a small movement in the far top corner of the field turned into an avalanche of sheep pouring towards us bleating anxiously. 'I hope you've brought something for them too' I said to the delivery man. 'How odd' he replied and climbed back into the van... after handing  me the parcel from John Lewis. A natural lambskin for carseats and strollers!

b. Every where has been covered in frost all day and this morning a pure white pheasant appeared on the garden steps, but not for long.


And here are my beautiful things:


1. Two of my friends post on Facebook pictures of their babies. Oli is doing a tarot card series of his son (I particularly like the Tower built from Duplo, and the guest appearance by a big sister as the Priestess); while Paul has posed his little boy in tableaux from famous films. The Good, The Bad and Ugly -- baby in poncho and hat with bread stick hanging off his lip -- leaves me crying with laughter.

2. PaulV comes round and takes the last batch of bump photos -- "The light is lovely," he says, pushing me out of the back door.


2a. Anna sends me home from tea in her office with a plate of scones and gooey chocolate cake.


3. Across the car park, in a top window there is a lit-up Christmas tree. Better than an advent calendar. 

Little brown job, turkeys and puppy.

1. "Sort of skulking?" "Yes, and picking bits out from between the paving stones." "That's a dunnock." Another of our home birds identified.

2. My parents' neighbour has four turkeys in a pen in the woods. They are pleased to see us and come to the fence to show off their green-black plumage. One of the males fans out his tail for us.

3. He brings his great dane puppy out to meet us. Its colour makes me think of a batch of biscuits -- pale gold to soft tan. He says its spent the short afternoon testing the boundaries of his garden.

Filling, fluff and fathers.

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.

Certificate, bitter and dads.

1. Nick has a certificate from work praising his diligent and tenacious work on a project -- and there is a small bonus attached.

2. Amaretti for elevenses.

3. At the antenatal class I like catching the other dads patting their partners' bumps.

Scarlet suit, pork and science fiction.

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.

Not up yet, biscuits and next time.

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."

End of autumn, woodsmoke and circles.

1. Walking through the park in the rain. Cold air. Cold sky. Warm reds and golds hang on bravely.

2. The smell of woodsmoke on a rainy day.

3. We've been walking in circles all morning, she says in a text. I assume it's a metaphor for a frustrating day. No -- walking round and round holding a couple of Mum's fingers is Ben's new favourite activity.

Cake, guest bed and parent talk.

Susan emailed to let me know that she'd posted her 'how I found 3BT' story on her blog, Notes from Innisfree. It was mentioned in a sermon at her church -- so thank you to that pastor, whoever you are!

And I had another message this morning: Sandy wanted to tell me about the 1,000 Crane Mission -- a project to release 1,000 paper cranes, each inscribed with a positive word, into the wild. I really love these projects that reach out, hoping to touch the lives of random strangers.

1. My mother appears, and she has some cake.

2. We have guest staying tomorrow night. I hunt down the bag of visitor's linen and make up the bed in the attic. 

3. We have our first NCT class. They separate the mums from the dads to help us mix. We're talking about how we've found our pregnancies. We can hear the dads roaring with laughter next door. "They're just talking about beer and football," someone says. When we are alone again, I ask Nick what they said. "We talked about when it came real for us. I told them about Baby Badger kicking me in the back."

Bare earth, a comfort and some gifts.

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.

Snooze, shorthand and addressing a duke.

1. It's Nick's first day back at work after his week off. He hits the snooze button and goes in late.

2. Reading back my shorthand.

3. I went to a lunch party for literary ladies on Monday, and everyone was full of the new Sunday night costume drama, Downton Abbey -- except me, because I hadn't seen it. Now that it's not football night, we can sit down to watch the scheming would-be heiresses and ambitious staff slug it out in a stunning country house. We are completely entranced. I felt bad about inflicting it on Nick; but he gets very caught up, and at the end he says the writer Julian Fellowes Got It Right because he is properly posh. "He knows how people would address a Duke."*


* Say the Duke of Westminster is your landlord. If by some chance he came round to collect the rent, you might want to show some deference and address him as "Your grace" -- "Sorry about all the sheets, your Grace. We could really do with a new washing machine. One with a condensing dryer."

If, however, he was just popping in for a coffee, you would be meeting him on equal terms, in which case, you call him "Duke". "Milk and sugar, Duke?"

Spotted, dark heart and beans.

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.

Pipe tobacco, coming down and dessert.

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.

Be happy, first day of school and The Shipping News.

1. As always, he tells me to be good. I tell him it will be a tall order. And very seriously, he says: "Well be happy then."

2. As I start work, a mother and two little boys in school uniform come out of the footpath at the corner of the car park.

3. The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx -- one of my favourite novels ever. It's a story of redemption in an unforgiving climate. Finding books in our house is all about serendipity, and I am very glad to have spotted this lying on a heap of role-playing fanzines.

Hat from Ghent, photographer and an easy mistake.

1. She comes for elevenses wearing her hat from Ghent.

2. As I hurry through The Grove, I spot Plutarch taking photos, I think of a wood pigeon pacing among the litter left around the teenager benches.

3. On my return, Nick tells me that he nearly ate the cake-shaped bathmelt that I left in the kitchen. "I didn't think you'd leave just one cake out if you didn't mean me to eat it."

Post, late and fish on a dish.

1. "I'm going round the front to check for post," says Nick -- we should get a delivery to our door, but some of the postmen don't know that, and leave it with the mail for the other flats. He almost walks into the postman, who has a parcel of sewing things for me.

1a. I mishear 'nerve centre' as 'nerd centre'.

2. The lady at the table next to us flicks through her notebook. They ask if everything is all right. "He's always late. I'm looking for his number. I've got the vet coming at two thirty." They tell her that they will hurry her meal through when he arrives.
We are on our main course when he comes -- got lost on the motorway and parked on a yellow line. "I'll have a scotch on ice."
And breathe.

3. My mackerel is arranged in two little towers on a foundation of spinach. Each is tailed by a green smear of -- licks fingertip -- wasabi. It makes me think of creatures leaving tracks on the seabed.