Three Beautiful Things

On our wedding day, one of my favourite bloggers Mr London Street wrote a 3BT post , which is so full of love and pleasure that I hope everyone will give it a read. 1. Katie comes by after breakfast (by which I mean about noon) to drop off a card and have a catch-up. As always, she looks very glam in a smart coat that is the perfect length to show off her beautiful conker-brown boots. I am still in my pyjamas. 2. While waiting in a bookshop for the rain to stop: "That'll teach me to leave my coat in the car. Shall we go across the road and have a cup of coffee in BHS?" 3. We have so many people to thank that we need a spreadsheet to keep track. It's getting more and more heavily pencilled as we remember the kindnesses.

1. On a winter day, walking out and squinting into the sunshine. 2. Slow-cooked pork -- tender and sticky shreds -- with crackling to crunch between our teeth. 3. Today has been a day of spices: fennel seeds ground up and rubbed into the crackling on our pork belly. My finger tips turn green. Cloves pressed into oranges to make pomanders that I dust with cinnamon pack away in paper bags for Christmas. A hard spot has formed on the tip of my thumb.

We're back safely from our honeymoon -- we had a lovely relaxing few days. Being married takes a bit of getting used to, but we've got plenty of time. Thank you very much to the guest posters who covered last week -- I felt much better than I expected to about leaving the blog because I knew it was in safe hands. And it's always a privilege to read about other people's beautiful things, particularly people who don't often express themselves in writing. And thank you particularly to Katie who typed up three scribbled hotel memo block pages that I thrust into her hand as the train pulled out of Tunbridge Wells, and turned up some piccies of the wedding... And added a few extra beautiful things which I thought of later in the week. The wedding day was magical, and we are still enjoying the memories. My husband and I felt so loved and supported by everyone there, and by all the people who let us know that they wished us well in emails and comments. 1. We walk through th...

1. Beano Cook, the 'pope of college football', pontificates to his listeners. As someone who has trouble remembering what he had for breakfast, I marvel at how he so vividly recalls incidents from games played half a century ago. 2. The afternoon is dragging, until Charlotte rallies us with the cry of "let's put the kettle on!" As we make hurriedly for the kitchen I wonder if there will be a biscuit I can snuffle. 3. On the train in the evening I pause from reading my paper to think of the beautiful girl who's waiting for me to get home. Text by Nick Law

Clare asked me to do a post while she was away on her honeymoon. Here are Three Beautiful Clare Things that I'm most thankful for: 1. Clare does everything first so that by the time I come to do them they're not quite so scary, and she's never once complained about it. 2. Ever since I was born and she was five, she's looked out for me: advises where she can and comforts when required. 3. Her creativity - it's always been there but she's honed it and crafted it into something so positive and well, beautiful! Text by Rosey Grant.

1. The delicate web of connections that has led Clare (my former housemate; introduced to me by an ex-girlfriend of mine) and Nick (one of my oldest friends; we sat next to each other in school and discovered a shared interest in science-fiction, roleplaying games and wargames) to meet at my wedding in 2007, fall in love and get married. 2. Small companies on the Internet that say ‘thank you’ when you enquire about their niche products and enjoy sharing their enthusiasm for them with fellow geeks. 3. I eat my chocolate mousse with one hand because the other arm is cradling a sleeping baby. After the meal we retire to the lounge and the baby awakens. Holding her with my hands clasped around her tummy, I bounce her up and down. She smiles and it’s the most amazing sight I have ever seen. Text by Tim Knight of Heropress.net

1. We have a tame robin ( Erithancus rubecula ). It first appeared when it was quite young: wide beaked and speckled with feathers sticking out at silly angles. Now it has a fine red breast. When the back door is open it sits on the doorstep then hops into the kitchen as if it were its own house. It hops under the table and daintily picks up all the crumbs and then hops out again. Sometimes it goes further into the house. One day it hopped through the utility room, kitchen, hall, sitting room and into my study where it picked a dead moth from a spider's web, ate it and hopped out again. When the door is not open it sits in a shrub and crossly tck, tck, tcks at anyone who appears. When it is not foraging it sits in the middle of a thorn bush and practises singing. It sings very quietly with its beak hardly open (bird teenage mumbling) in preparation for the spring when it will sit at the top of the bush and burst into full song. 2. I visit the WHF Big Cat Sanctuary in Smarden. ( ww...