Three Beautiful Things

1. I interview a lady who embroiders tactile copies of famous paintings for people with visual impairments. She uses textures to express temperature and colour. It's fascinating to experience a piece of stitching with my fingertips as well as my eyes. "Try touching it lightly -- it sort of tingles," she says. 2. She brings us coffee -- and her sugar bowl matches the dinner service that I inherited from my grandmother. She tells me that she found a pair of matching egg cups in a charity shop, and that she eats boiled eggs just for the pleasure of using them. 3. Two newly-washed pairs of jeans lounge on the bed, proud of their clean, cold blues (one deep water blue and one shallow water blue).

1. At the art gallery here in Tunbridge Wells, we are lucky enough to have an exhibition of David Hockney's Brother's Grimm prints . We go together and enjoy Hockney's wonderful imagination (Rumplestilchen tears himself in half, quarters and then into tiny pieces), his skill at the medium (I enjoyed the contrast between the heap of straw and heap of gold) and his acute observation (loved the enchantress' hairy chin). 2. We view a house, and I spot a guide to British birds in the sitting room, and an improvised birdtable on the hedge. 3. I have finally got round to securing the buttons on my coat -- they've been dangling on long (but well secured) threads for weeks, and looking really untidy. We put a radio play on (a Big Finish Doctor Who) and before I know it, the job is done.

1. I get the news that I've got the funding for an audio typing course, which I'm hoping will open some (paying) work doors for me. 2. I like to see a rainstorm coming in over the Medway valley. Long grey streaks have been combed out of the high clouds. 3. I try ribbon embroidery for the first time. Di Van Niekerk's book is insistant that even imperfect stitches are fine because you can work over them to add texture.

1. It's warm, and it's been raining. The wet world is full of slippery wonders and unusual sights. The ground steams; slugs wave their horns; grass seeds look sorry for themselves. 2. A new packet of needles. I think about the bone and wooden needles used in the Stone Age, and how hard it must have been to make them; and how easy it is for me to buy a packet -- and how cheap they are. That makes me think of Adam Smith's essay about division of labour ; which reminds me how much can be achieved by co-operation. 3. Katie has turned up a cross-stitch kit that she doesn't have time for. It is scented, apparently -- what wonderous times we live in.

1. Sitting on the floor, polar thriller on the radio, and filling my hands with the mindless task of loading a thread holder with 38 hanks of floss in beautiful subtle colours . 2. I take the weeping fig outside and clean the dust off its leaves. 3. There is chard in our veggie box , with glossy lilypad green leaves and crimson, white and yellow stems.

1. The front door sticks because there is a parcel on the mat. 2. A fat cushion of a package of threads and ribbons from Di van Niekerk for an ambitious long-term embroidery project. 3. Pulling spring onions from my window box -- the bulbs are like the whitest pearls.

1. Those people who buttonhole you in the street to persuade you to sign up for something: I like to tell them I'm in a hurry. 2. Jubilant Nick comes home triumphant after running his yearly three mile race in 35 minutes. 3. My fingers are faintly sticky from the dried lavender I've been stuffing into an embroidered heart.

1. Nick wakes me up and to tell me I'm his two-year girl. It's hard to believe that it's the second anniversary of our meeting at Tim and Rachel's wedding -- sometimes it seems as if we've been together since always; other times it seems we are walking into new territory. 2. A church round the corner has an embroidery exhibition. To give me a change from the flat's four walls, we go and have a look. My favourite was a pair of blue egg-shaped panels covered in lacy white images of magnified planckton and algae. 3. BBC2's South Pacific documentary included footage filmed inside a 12ft high breaking wave that left me with my mouth hanging open.

1. Ducking out of the rain and under an overhanging building. 2. A boy of 13 stands in front of the bakery display, the tongs hovering over an almond croissant. 3. Putting the final stitches in my scissors case.

1. Chimney pots trying to reach above the grey rainy morning. 2. Putting a small dish of mince topped with sliced potatoes into the oven. There is nutmeg and cheese among the layers. 3. To run my fingers over the latest section of my sewing and feel the smooth satin stitch and the nubbly mountains raised by Rhodes stitch.

1. All day I have to hand The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon . It is a collection of lists and notes about life as lady-in-waiting in 10th century Japan. She still seems so alive a thousand years later. 2. It is a day with plenty of space between each happening. 3. I am annoyed at having to unpick so many stitches -- again -- but I feel better for doing it, knowing that later on I needn't fudge the pattern to make it fit.

1. A thick layer of solid chocolate filling in someone else's cake. 2. Adding more hot water to a cooling bath. 3. It has taken a week of unwillingly snatched moments to unpick three rows of tightly stitched mistake, but now it's done.

I have tagged most of the posts referring to Nick for those who wanted this. It's really not a narrative, as 3BT was never intended to be used as such. These posts are an unsorted bundle of unimportant and important moments in our relationship. Some turning points in the story are not there, because I never wrote about them. Here is a link to the first page of the list . The oldest posts are at the bottom of the page, and there is a link to the newer posts at the bottom of the page. 1. I am wearing a few strings of sandalwood beads that my parents brought me from India. Every so often, I can smell them, warm, musky and woody. 2. Splitting the threads and recombining them plumps them up and make the colours as rich as fruitcake. 3. Click by click, the house darkens.

1. I have a nap in the middle of the morning and drift in and out of sleep. The joiner fixing the window next door is whistling and ocassionally singing: ' A girl like you ' 2. The colour of grated carrot -- it's such a bright, juicy orange on a wintery day. 3. I was once the child whose colouring went over the edge; whose samplers were speckled with blood and tears; whose cutting out was jagged and torn and whose handwriting was a constant worry to teachers. I used to feel very ashamed of my art and crafts and still burn to remember the headmaster pronouncing my paper curl chicken 'a mess'. But last night, I was looking at a box I'd decorated with a cut-out, and an embroidery I'm mounting, and I felt quite pleased and proud. It must be partly experience and practice; partly acceptance of my own limitations and partly better tools. I think my motor skills have improved with age -- I'd never have imagined I'd achieve the things I've done in my dra...

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all the 'Thank you' notes that have been appearing recently. I'm really glad so many of you take the time to read me. I'm glad I've helped people to learn English, and to relax at the end of a working day. I'm also delighted by the steadily growing list of Blogger followers (see right sidebar) and feed subscribers . And Ian over at The Eye has created a Friendfeed room for 3BT -- go and join in the fun. 1. Patching the seat of my jeans on a cold, dark afternoon. 2. I look at the thing I have just made: a blue felt stocking sewn round with red blanket stitch and think that it would look neat stuffed with a couple of Cadbury's Wispas . 3. At bedtime, the smell of baked apples is still hanging round in the kitchen.

1. Sleepy Nick with his hair sticking up in all directions. 2. I never have enough 5ps for the coffee machine. I usually end up paying 20p instead of the advertised 15p because I have to use a 20p, or two 10ps. Getting change made my tea taste very good. 3. My pin cushion. I embroidered it from a Vari-Galore kit, and I feel very proud to have made something I like so much.

1. A party of school children sitting in a gallery. A teacher from the Fitzwilliam Museum is asking them to interpret the symbols in a painting: 'This is all about what you think. Don't worry about what your neighbour has put. Write down what's important to you.' and 'We don't have time to read all of them, but if you want to send them in to us, we do like to read them. We're thinking about maybe publishing a book one day.' 2. In a darkened room -- it reminds me of the nocturnal house in the zoo -- delicate samplers are on display. I imagine the girls and women who made them shyly presenting their work , blinking at the attention paid to their needlework practice . I think these treasures are more precious than the great works because their survival is so unlikely. 3. Finding a room of Chinese pottery -- I like this because I can spot Tang dynasty and Sung dynasty, which makes me feel superior. Also, the Tang's bright glazes and gurning figures an...

1. Late Christmas presents -- my aunt, uncle and cousins were away for Christmas, so we've only managed to meet up now. 2. A compartment box of beads for adding to embroidery. It's plastic, so when I rub it with my sleeve, the tiny beads stick to the lid. 3. My aunt is a born 3BTer in her photographs. She gets pictures of mushrooms and uncurling ferns and butterflies.

1. Taking a nap in the afternoon to help my ideas settle -- I like that time between waking and sleeping for new ideas. I think it might be the cocooned feeling and the 'Do not Disturb' aspect. It's nap a day month , too. 2. Darning a worn place on my jeans because it'll make them last another few months. 3. Sitting under a duvet and hearing the rain and wind lash against the house.

1. I did a term of ballet when I was very tiny, but I don't remember having the shoes bought for me. However, I need a pair of ballet shoes for my Halloween costume, so Katie and I went to the ballet shop to pick out a pair of suitable size eights. I feel as if an important memory has been restored. 2. Running into Nick in M&S and getting a small kiss by way of greeting. 3. Watching my Halloween costume take shape under Katie's sewing machine.