Spindle, better and sound effects.

1. A spindle tree with the orange seeds just bursting out of the pink cases cheers me up as I struggle up the hill across the park.

2. "I feel so much better for that," I tell my yoga teacher at the end of the class.

3. By chance I come across an old friend on Radio 4 -- a thriller adapted from Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book. It is beautifully done in terms of sound effects and voice acting. The Empress, in particular, is astonishing  -- refined and restrained and authoritative all at once.

Back to bed, ready for winter and birds.

1. I go looking for a writing group -- but it's half term, so they're not meeting. Good -- I can go back to bed.

2. It's such a beautiful day -- and I have plenty to do in the back yard. I plant a few bulbs, and feel pleased at the sight of fresh compost in the pots. I also cut down the tired mint -- it makes the rubbish bag very fresh smelling.
 
3. A high flock of birds -- each one small as stubble on a man's cheek.

Perk up, love and cooler.

It's my day at Oxfam Bookfest (in case anyone has forgotten!). I'll be at the Chapel Place Oxfam Bookshop in Tunbridge Wells today from noon to 3pm. 

1. My courgette plants have drooped in the full sun. I move them into the shade, and marvel at how quickly the leaves perk up again.

2. Her love is so fierce and absorbing that her attention always turns back to this wailing, difficult baby. If that's how I am going to feel about Baby Badger, I am not afraid of anything.

3. In these hot days, my evening glass of soda water and Angostura bitters (cool with condensation) is very welcome.

Light at last, Hedera helix and fat.

1. Waking up to see a bit of daylight prying itself through the gap in the curtains. Morning work feels like a light bath, and it makes me feel like getting things done.

2. Nick's sister Sarah rings to tell me to expect a plant. A couple of hours later, a man comes to the door. "I've got a very large ivy for you." It's a cone, about the height of a child, and it's perfect for the collection of pots along the sunny wall.

3. It's satisfying to pick off and throw away the fat that has floated to the top of a stew taken from the fridge.

Mint, cucumber and sole.

1. I pull the dead sunflower from the pot by the front door. The mint plant protests in the only way it can, by rolling clouds of its scent at me. New compost and a watering cheer it up a little -- but it still looks resentful.

2. The vines are finished, and so I root them out, only to find a stunted yellow cucumber has been growing un-noticed and (until now) un-loved.

3. Making up a dish of seasoned flour, coating some lemon sole fillets and frying them in some melted butter until the fish turns from translucent and marble cold to opaque and soft. The coating crisps a little and turns from raw white powder to a red-gold crust.

Picture of mint from Stock.xchng

The drink, out of the sun and all together now.

1. My sunflower's leaves are hanging soft and sad like wet handkerchiefs. I dip a watering can into the cool, dark rainbarrel and take it a drink. An hour later, its leaves are proudly starched again.

2. The air is as hot as my skin and the sunlight is so bright that I have to work hard to decide what details are important. I like to step into an air conditioned shop; and to be given a free sample of a cool drink.

3. We spend the evening listening to Prom 45: The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. It's very funny -- and the sound of the audience joining in with Beethoven's Ode to joy on 1,000 ukes was stirring, and somehow reassuring and unifying. Also, if you have a moment, read the reviews of the controversial Prom 25. One listener claims her ears were raped, and another was upset by whatever the pianist was doing inside the piano.

The first moments, covered and a stolen child.

1. I step outside to pick up the milk and check my pots of seeds. The air is so still and cool and the day so full of possibilities.

2. A flowering shrub in the middle of this front garden has an old curtain thrown over it to keep the cold off.

3. We find frogspawn in the nature reserve pond. She tells me that when she was at junior school, she stole a single jellied egg from the class's tank and took it home in her drink bottle. Her mother was very cross and said: 'Well you'd better look after it.' So she raised a little frog.

Growing, looking in and how it was done.

1. On my desk, the tray of sprouting cress has put out root hairs. By home time, the leaves are turning green.

2. One of the boards has been pulled off and we are mad with curiosity. We peer in. Drifts of shattered glass bounce light around the room. Silver air con ducts hang from the ceiling like discarded pupae.

3. I like watching documentaries about the making of nature documentaries. I like hearing how the cameraman got involved with the story, and the lengths to which he had to go to get his footage.

Yes dear, splat and bookworm.

1. Katie comes in to tell me something to which I am not really listening because I am writing. I catch that she is very happy with her life in general, particularly her boyfriend and her homelife. Later in the day, I realise that I had been thinking just the same thing as she brought my mug of tea into the early morning gloom of my bedroom.

2. Treading on a laurel berry for the wet crunch.

3. On my way home I see a man I once met at a party walking down the street with his nose in a book.