3BT: well, seven, really...

On the way into town for my (ridiculously early) visa interview today, I was thinking about three beautiful things, and how Clare of the original 3BT blog manages to do it every day. It must take a lot of creativity and determination and discipline. But then today was one of those days when beautiful thing after beautiful thing kept happening...

1. The poppies on the disused train platform seem to come alive in the early morning sunshine.

2. The people at the American Embassy were not as scary as I had been led to believe by the website.

3. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all smiled at me from the wall of the waiting room, seemingly genuine welcome-to-America smiles.

4. My visa got approved after not that many scary questions!

5. Fresh orange juice, almond croissant, and a coffee to celebrate.

6. Politico's Senior Editor is in town for a lecture on the American election. I overcome my fear and speak to him about internships, and start to dream.

7. The Brussels metro is, randomly, playing a song by one of my favourite Spanish bands.

4BT (because sometimes three just isn't enough)

1. The pigeon on the roof opposite my window looks like he (she?) is doing handstands.

2. All the way home I hope that the new edition of The Writer magazine is waiting for me in my postbox, and it is.

3. Seeing "The Iron Lady" a while back sent shivers through me but also made me realise that the 80s were a fascinating decade, whose magnitude I was too young to understand but would now like to. It turns out that next term I get to study 80s literature as one of my options.

3. A brand new photo of my brand new goddaughter smiles up at me from my iPad.

3BT: sleep, writing, chats

1. I slept for almost nine hours. I have not felt this physically well in a long time.

2. Beautiful new notebooks and The Three a.m. Epiphany make for new enthusiasm about working on my writing.

3. A long overdue cuppa with a friend, and some nice Facebook chats with others. This is what I feel the Internet ought to have been invented for: real contact with actual people.

3BT: at last, a parcel, a pub

1. The sunshine wakes me up. The sunshine!

2. Is there anything more satisfying than the swift and efficient arrival of a large Amazon parcel?

3. I embrace the expat lifestyle and head out to a quiz in an Irish pub, where the service is friendly, and they even give me a pint of iced tap water without my having to grovel, as well as a free round of drinks for being too slow. Now that's service.

3BT: a smile, a laugh, and election fun

1.     1. As I walk to the station, I follow a granddad carrying a toddler all wrapped up in winter clothes. She holds my gaze and smiles at me.

2.      2. I must be in a good mood, or the Bugle podcast must be funnier than usual, because I giggle to myself as I walk along with iPod on. A woman laughs with me, not at me – enjoying my enjoyment, though she can’t possibly know what I am listening to. 

2.  3. It's a long story, but my weekly timetable is changing as of today – no longer do I have to make a weekly trek to the middle of nowhere on a train and a tram and a bus, come rain or shine or snow and ice. Better yet, this means a lie-in on Wednesdays, which means I get to enjoy Tuesday night American election fun. 

3BT: friendship, stir fry, Scramble

1. I finally get some time with a friend whose schedule rarely coincides with mine. We eat gooey chocolate cookies in Pain Quotidien.

2. I've been craving stir fry from the pre-prepared veggie packs since the beginning of the year and consequently thinking wistful thoughts about Sainsbury's Market in Pimlico... Sigh. But today I walk into my little local Delhaize and discover they've decided to honour Chinese New Year by stocking the "Wok" range, including those veggies.

3. I discover Scramble with Friends, and it's a lot of fun. I particularly like the encouraging automatic voice which ups its enthusiasm according to word length: good! Excellent! Amazing!

3BT, though today it's six

(Since I haven't 3BTed in ages, I hope you'll forgive me for having six today.)

1. I feel so inspired after my dailyish writing exercise that I decide to skive work and type up chapter one of my current WIP (work in progress), Primary Season. I'm not behind on my work, so I don't even need to feel guilty.

2. My favourite thing about Twitter is being able to communicate with authors whose book I enjoy. In the last couple of days, I've tweeted with three who are important to me, because I love their books and in some ways want to write like them, and in odd ways perhaps have things in common with them too, things that make me feel a kind of kinship with them. This makes me happier than I can begin to explain.

3. I am on time to orchestra for once, and I walk in to see two teenage girls messing around on the piano, playing and singing "In the jungle, the mighty jungle", or rather "dans la jungle, la terrible jungle"... There is something of an unadulterated simple pleasure in this, of their joy in each other and in music and in being young.

4. It's long and complicated to explain, but I have hope again that Inevitable may yet be published, when yesterday I felt nothing but despair and an irresistible urge to go the Kindle route.

5. When I buy my train ticket, the lady behind the counter spots the Guernsey sticker that has been on my flute case since 1996 (!) and we agree it's a lovely place. Such great memories, too...

6. Picking out my book for tomorrow, since I've almost finished the one I'm currently reading, I spot a notebook on the shelf. And yes - it's my blue writing prompts notebook, the one with half written fan fic and scenes for the new novel and generally lots of useful, useable stuff. I thought I'd lost it. I am relieved and ecstatic that I haven't.

3BT: countryside, communication, culinary delights

1. A drive up into the Algarve moutains: amazing views. I love the orange trees.

2. Friendly people, happy to communicate with us in broken and basic Portuguese. In one random village they gleaned we spoke French and went to fetch someone who could help us out.

3. A delicious meal out: mixed fish grill and home-made local dessert, plus great service: the inspiration, finally, to come home and register niceplacestoeat.wordpress.com. Food writing and restaurant reviewing is, apparently, my latest New Thing.

3BT: a present, a pudding, the Queen

1. I've been told not to expect a present, since I'm getting this holiday, and my mum usually means that when she says it. So I was excited to discover that she'd bought me a watch I'd seen in the town and commented on - I hadn't even intended it to be a hint. Its strap is made of cork - a local speciality - and I haven't had a watch in ages. Win.

2. Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. Enough said.

3. The Queen rocks her Christmas message this year, and is clear and direct about her Christian beliefs. I wonder if she's had to fight to say it unequivocally without the usual politically correct bits to water it all down. I hope she has, because then I'd be even prouder of her.

3BT: reading, sunshine, fresh juice

1. A lie in with a book.

2. Breakfast on the sunny balcony.

3. Freshly squeezed pineapple juice. Yes, pineapple juice. New to me too. Not pineapple juice, obviously. But the freshly squeezed part. Also, the sitting on a Portuguese beach part.

3BT: holiday pleasures

1. The ocean glints in the sunlight.

2. I sink my heels into the wet sand.

3. The red wine goes perfectly with the slightly kicky goat's cheese.

4BT: coffee, tomatoes, reading and laughter

1. The coffee tastes perfect, just the way cafe con leche tasted in Spain. I haven't had a coffee so good in a very long time. Afterwards, I indicate with a thumbs up that I likes it and the lady teaches me to say "o café é bom".

2. The tomatoes are bright red and full of flavour and richness. If fruit back home tasted the way it does here, I would happily eat a lot more of it.

3. I read in the sun with my feet up on the balcony edge.

4. I laugh with my mum and step dad about how everything, particularly vegetarian meals, tastes better with bacon.

3BT: work, work, work

1. An old student of mine from London who recently returned for more French lessons via Skype never fails to make me laugh with his very British dry wit. "Well," he reponds when I apologise for the meanness of one particular exercise, "you've got to have your fun."

2. Someone buys my book. (I know, I know, but it'll be a while before the novelty wears off.)

3. My first English conversation class goes really well. I set them a pair exercise and they chat away. They're enthusiastic and have a good level of English and plenty to talk about.


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3BT: banks, lessons and a thank you

1. The bank unblocks my card; I won't have to wait days for a new PIN after all. It might not be poetic, but it is a relief.

2. Equally unpoetic: the owner of the restaurant says I can use a corner of his place for my English conversation classes. I'm looking forward to planning lessons around articles in Time Magazine. Not that teaching grammar isn't fun too, in its own way.

3. I work some Twitter back channels and get a message to one of my very favourite famous people in the world. I get a "thank you" back. (If you knew me, you would understand.)

3BT: sunshine, verbs and an old friend

1. I know I've said it before, but this weather... Amazing. Hard to believe it's almost October when it feels like June.

2. My student, who claims he doesn't remember anything after a three-month break, nevertheless recites  almost all his verb conjugations perfectly, and remembers there is no liaison after "et". Seriously, it's the little things.

3. An old, old friend whom I have not seen for years gets in touch to say she's going to be in Brussels.

3BT: a word, sunshine, and the floor

1. Somebody I have coffee with uses the word "lackadaisical" - one of my favourites, and I've only ever seen it in books.

2. I read my writing magazines in the sunshine.

3. I am tidying my flat, finding lots of Time Magazines I didn't know I had, and seeing the floor again.


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My book, a new(er) oboe, and learning

1. A twitter friend of mine reviews my book on his blog then spends all day tweeting that people should buy it.

2. I get to swap my old music school oboe for a newer one.

3. I start watching the History Channel DVDs I got for my birthday, and they're exactly what I wanted: fifteen minutes or so summing up the careers of each of the US Presidents.


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3BT: cute toddler, good food and loo roll

1. I spend almost all day with my big sister and her adorable little boy, who smiles and laughs and points at things enthusiastically, and even lets me hold him for a little while. Seriously - he is such a cutie. This, by the way, is the same toddler nephew who is soothed in the middle of the night by West Wing episodes, possibly because he heard a lot of it from the womb, or possibly because he has very discerning taste. 

2. There is melon with ham at the wedding.

3. The cheap loo roll I buy from the local supermarket appears to have mathematical equations on it. Ones with Greek letters. Ah, Belgium. 

3BT: carrot soup, another review, and a new website

1. A lovely friend brings me home-made carrot soup and freshly squeezed oranges, and sympathy for my being ill at home.

2. I spend a few hours contacting expat magazines to see if they want to review Conquering Babel. The best-selling UK-based mag for Francophiles says yes. Potentially, this could mean a boost in sales, and it gives me confidence that I have a marketable product.

3. Having struggled with Wordpress, I've found a website designing and hosting service that does exactly what I wanted and is easy to use: weebly.


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3BT: work, a review, and my favourite actor

1. I have not one but two emails from people enquiring about lessons. I can't remember the last time this happened.

2. A twitter friend of mine whose blog has a large following agrees to review my book, Conquering Babel.

3. I watch Bradley Whitford give an interview about his forthcoming event, fundraising for a cancer charity that sounds like it's doing fantastic work. It makes me smile when celebs I love use their fame for good.


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