Three Beautiful Things

1. To reach the top of Calverley Grounds and look out across the border to Sussex. The view, because it includes so much sky, is different every time. Today sunlight is falling in rays on to the ridges, which look like layers of blue and grey tissue paper. 2. When I go to lift Alec into the pushchair he stops me and asks to climb in by himself. 3. I'm really enjoying -- as in I keep sneaking off to read it -- a book of short stories, Very Best of Charles De Lint . The stories combine a north American urban setting with British rural mythologies as well as few homegrown legends and they are peopled by a quirky cast of characters

1a. Would she like me to go and get her a cup of tea from the excellent women who run the toddler group? "No, but could you hold him while I go?" To have a (smallish) baby to amuse for a few minutes. 1.  It takes a few tries but eventually I get Alec to drop "Happy birthday dear Alec" in favour of "Happy birthday dear Daddy". Next on the agenda is a chat about who is giving presents to whom. 2. I am so grumpy and pregnant that I can't be bothered to raise myself from the bed to get a book to read. So I tell him a story out of my own head. "Once upon a time there was a-" "Norglet!"* "...a norglet who lived in a treehouse with his parents and a pet monkey called-" "Granny!" This cheers me up enormously. 3. Nick says, when I tell him the highlights of our day: "I like being a daddy." *A norglet is the word we use to describe Alec when he is being particularly Alec-ish.

1. It's a good morning: Alec sleeps until half past eight, and then eats an entire bowlful of porridge with less mucking around than normal. 2. The way scampi keep disappearing off my plate; and the way Alec asks to get down so that he can join his friend pressing buttons on the vending machines. I like to see a pair of two-year-old heads bowed over a small mischief. 3. Nick sings from memory one of Alec's favourite songs, I Saw a Ship A-Sailing . He doesn't forget a single one of the four-and-twenty white mice (that's the line I always stumble on when I'm not concentrating).

1a. It is 6.15am and I am tired of nursing. "More bub when daylight comes back." Alec isn't happy. "Want shout Daddy." "Daddy's asleep." "Daddy make daylight come back." 1. When I hear feet on the stairs I sigh because I haven't quite finished everything I meant to do in naptime. But Alec pitter-patters straight into the front room and everything goes quiet. When my curiosity (and my fear) get the better of me I find him lying on the floor. He says "No more Mummy. Go in the kitchen." Later I find him standing on the arm of the sofa to look out of the window. "No more Mummy, go in the kitchen." We both want to be left to our own devices and I am a fool and an ingrate to meddle. 2. Buying an avocado for a particular meal is always a risk -- but this one (after two days in a paper bag with a squashy banana) is just right. 3. I catch Alec's eye round the corner of the bookshelf and we both smile, great fac...

1. There is no snow on any of the pavements apart from ours. I'm overdressed in my heavy boots and layered coats -- but at least I'm warm enough. 2. I spent some time yesterday moving books around so that all Alec's bedtime reading was on a small bookcase in our bedroom. The idea was that he could pick his own books out, rather than relying on us to pull them down for him from the various places that they get stashed around the room. It took a fair bit of thought (and I had to cull some of my own books to make the space) so I was very gratified to hear him refer to it this evening as "Alec's bookshelf". 3. I've just come down from settling Alec and I'm ravenous. I put some soup on, and then I hear the sound of bare feet on the stairs and a hopeful enquiry: "Daylight come back?" "No," says Nick, "It's still night time. Come back upstairs and lie down with Daddy." Nick returns not much later and reports that the li...

1. In an unobtrusive place on our farm baseboard I spot "Ro d bert" written in sprawling pencil letters. It is strange to think back to c.1980 and a small Uncle Robert in dungarees squatting down to push his tractors around. 2. Just like Alec did, Little Tiny Baby likes to have a good wriggle around while I'm relaxing at the end of yoga. 3. When I get to nursery Alec and two other little boys are trying to put the microwave into a cupboard in the play kitchen. "I don't think it will fit," says his key person in between showing me pictures of Alec solemnly sticking pink tissue paper to a pig template. "I really don't think it will go in there... Oh it does! Well, I never knew that."

1. To lie in bed late with a giggly, cuddly boy who isn't quite ready for nappy change and breakfast. 2. "I'll just take some of the weight off," says the hairdresser pulling out her strange razor comb scissor thing. I'm astonished at the great clumps of hair that she takes off -- and at the transformation. My whole head feels lighter. 3. I've been vaguely hungry all day -- thank goodness for second supper. I have a chicken sandwich, and an orange. And some fudge. And then a bit more fudge.