Three Beautiful Things

1. The other mothers at the breastfeeding drop-in laugh at me when I say I'm worried because Alec falls asleep when he's had enough. I had it in my head that he would take himself off when he'd finished -- apparently this is not what babies do at all. I am so relieved to hear that. 2. I like the way the health visitor says: "Enjoy your baby." I heard the midwives saying it to some of the parents leaving hospital, too. It's the one piece of advice that all the healthcare professionals can agree on. 3. Nick's colleagues send him home with almost a wardrobe's worth of clothes for Alec, in all different sizes, so we'll be dressing him and thinking of them for the next 18 months. They have also sent (among other things) a squeaky rubber giraffe called Sophie -- the packaging promises that she will stimulate all of Alec's senses and teach him about cause and effect.

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.

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.

Word Imperfect is back in action with her invented meaning word game -- go on over and join in. 1. That book that Caroline thought I'd like -- she was quite right. I do really, really like it. Tim Gautreaux's Waiting for the Evening News: Stories of the Deep South . It manages to be both dark and up-lifting. These are stories about people who fall and fall, and come back stronger and wiser. 2. Nick shakes off his umbrella and pulls from his bag: a very large box of chocolates and the latest Gardener's World magazine. 3. I was emailing secret chef -- yes, we have a clandestine restaurant in the area -- asking for a quick interview, and my spell-checker flagged the word restauranteur. A quick search later, and I discovered that the word is actually restaurateur (although my spelling is just about tolerated in more liberal circles). I've never noticed that -- never seen it mentioned in all the newspaper style guides that I've read. But that's the English ...

1. It's getting close to 2pm on a rainy Friday. The pub door spits office workers, all with coats pulled over their heads. 2. She's not at home. Dad answers the door with a dribbly son on his hip. "We're doing things that Mummy wouldn't approve of," he says. 3. Katie comes down with my mixer -- it made all the cupcakes for her wedding. She is relaxed and happy and brown from her honeymoon, and it's great to sit and talk it over while the rain streaks down outside.

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. 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...

1. The postman knocks -- he has a large but light parcel. It's a set of baby clothes, handknitted by Heather. So now I have something soft and warm to wrap my baby badger in. The little shoes make me want to cry. 2. I'm working upstairs in the early evening, and the window is open because the attic can be stuffy when the sun has been shining. I can hear the mechanical clack-clack clack-clack of a flamenco class in the TocH Hall. 3. All my biscuits fall through the wire cooling tray. "We need one with smaller holes," I tell Nick (who is proud that he has bought the finest baking equipment money can buy. He points out the bleeding obvious: "Next time, bake bigger biscuits."

1. To spend some time with my mother at the garden centre discussing the relative merits of violas and wallflowers. I love violas for their surprised but neat faces -- I think they are afraid of spoiling their carefully pencilled-in make-up. As soon as the vegetables finish and some pots come free, I'm going back for a couple of boxes. 2. Clients who pay very promptly and electronically. 3. There's been a car alarm yipping and wailing ever since we got into bed. I go to the window muttering that I am really going to give it something to go off about if I can work out which car it is. It falls silent and does not start again.

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.

1. Nick has baked a loaf of fruit bread overnight. It's very good for breakfast with butter and jam. 2. Tinny mobile phone music behind us on the footpath. Off button. 3. Even half an hour makes a hole in this work.

1. To go outside and find that a little rain has fallen on a warm day. 2. Thunder storm: save your work. 3. I unlock the door and the house smells of new bread.

1. I'm close to finishing Stephen Baxter's Flood , which I've enjoyed very much. It's an epic about a global flood, seen mostly through the eyes of a group of former hostages linked by a promise to look out for each other. They come under the wing of a super-rich businessman who is determined to keep his genetic line and philosophy alive. I've got a bit of a soft spot for post-apocalypse fiction -- does anyone have any recommendations to add to this Amazon list which I started at some time or other? 2. I like to see the score marks from yesterday's to-do list pressed through on to today's. 3. Nick takes me out for tapas "because we haven't been out for a while."

1. When I pass the house we are going to rent, I can see through the open door that there are cleaners mopping the floors. Later, we get emails to say that we've passed the credit check. 2. I am offered regular work -- just a morning a week, but it's a good bit of security. 3. To mess around with torn paper and white glue.

1. A caramel chocolate digestive to dip in my tea -- they are brilliant because the caramel keeps the biscuit together. 2. A bit of work comes in and it pretty much pays for my haircut. 3. To walk up the road and pick up a pizza from Firebelly, which does the best in Tunbridge Wells.

1. Through the post comes a fat envelope of free seeds from the BBC's Dig In project. At the end of the day, when all my work is done, I start to plant them up. 2. I interview the playwright John Godber because one of his shows, Men of the World is coming to Trinity next month . He has a soft Yorkshire accent that I like very much indeed. When I transcribe my shorthand, I enjoy hearing it all over again in my head. "It's a very human activity, of humans re-enacting history for other humans to watch." His humans are pronounced  yewman. 3. There are two blue tits that share the feeder in the rowan tree. They are small enough to work at it together; or sometimes one sits on a nearby branch and waits patiently for the other to finish. I love the way they share, as well as their bright lime-rind yellows and sky blues.

1. After a sleepless night, to get up and do the work that has been keeping me awake. 2. A flickering bird darts into the eaves. 3. A breath of wind. Cherry petals spinning across the drive.

1. How pleasing to interview a star of stage and screen while wearing pyjamas, and then to lie in the bath with one's husband until after 11am. 2. We look out of the waiting room window and see the police in the yard below -- they are shifting sacks and bundles out of a van. Very suspicious if you ask me. 3. Mint is burgeoning in the pot outside the front door, and I pick some to go with the courgettes.

1. This morning, everyone wants a piece of me. I think this is what being a mother must feel like. 2. Rosey is off to the Arctic this weekend, and her worries put mine into perspective. Will a half litre bottle be large enough to pee into when she can't get out of her tent during a snow storm. Where is she going to find a black bra with no underwires in her weird size at short notice (she's not changing her clothes until June so a white bra will turn a distressing colour). 3. We watch the last Wonders of the Solar System -- Professor Brian Cox's final wonder is our civilisation. This put a big smile on my face. I fully admit that there are a lot of things wrong with what we are doing to the planet, but I do get tired of the way we run ourselves down. When you think about things like microchips, bicycles, chocolate biscuits, four-year crop rotation, neurology and German expressionist film, you have to admit that we have achieved an awful lot.

Happy Frog has made a list of eight positive things from her month. I'm thinking that I might try taking stock like this -- it would be a good cure for that awful feeling that life is passing you by. 1. The new Christmas tree has shed its seed case and is uncurling an alien fistful of green fingers. 2. To spend a morning pulling together my week's work. Doors open for me at a touch. 3. To come into a pub and find my husband waiting with his newspaper and a brandy.