Ten Thousand, Nine Hundred And Fifty-Eight Beautiful Things...

Da-Alec prepares to ex-tinguin-ate Godfather Tibby...

On Sunday, my former housemate Clare's world-famous blog, Three Beautiful Things, celebrated its tenth anniversary.

In that time Clare has recorded three positive moments every day (well, almost every day), inspiring a sub-genre of blogging that has been taken up by followers of 3BT around the globe.

She's covered everything from monumental family events - such as weddings (including her own to my old school friend, Nick) and the birth of her two children, my godson Alec and his younger sister, Bettany - down to the minutiae of everyday life.

Even gaming has appeared on 3BT, as Clare and Nick were founding members of the Tuesday Knights, and Clare, although unable to find the time at present to come to our current monthly sessions, has continued to game with Meredith, who pops over every few weeks to sling dice.

I paid the Laws a visit earlier today (for various reasons I haven't been able to pop round for a couple of months, so aim to make up for that now) and kept the children entertained while Clare got caught up on with her housework.

Three-year-old Alec and I explored caves (made of blankets and pillows; Alec wearing Nick's head-torch and ably assisted by caving expert Monkey); chased - and were chased by - dinosaurs; read stories; built robot-helicopters out of Lego; and finally played Daleks after Alec found the washing basket and some brushes (see his costume above).

The Dalek developed a useful talent of being able to cut, brush and style hair with its plunger arms - and Alec was insistent that I find out what Rachel thought of my new hair style!