This morning I was sitting at my desk feeling dazed, much as every day in the last week, when the doorbell rang, starting a little ripple of events in my life that lasted no more than ten minutes in total but made me feel great. DM went dashing down and came back with a bouquet of flowers for me from my office colleagues – they are gorgeous – thanks guys.

A few moments later, the post arrived with a card from the team too – and I’d already had a card yesterday from the very wonderful Jo, who is working for us at the moment. It is filled with really sweet messages. Gulp – thanks again.

The final thing in this little trilogy of happy events was an email pinging into my box at exactly the same time as I was opening the card, it was from Margaret, DM’s lovely Mum. She’s never emailed me before so that was a really nice surprise. The email contained a motto:

‘Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “woo hoo what a ride”. Have a wonderful day.’

I don’t know who wrote this pearl of wisdom because it’s not credited on the email but I know it feels like a good way to live.

When I saw it, and then compared it with my posting from this time last year, I was struck by the similarity in intent, albeit couched in very different language. Life is short and oh so fragile. There are so many curve balls thrown at us all. Our happiness and pleasure are to be grasped and embraced, not saved for later.

That little saying about things happening in threes goes for bad as well as good but today my three events were very good indeed.

My photo contains a triumph too – it is now two years since the new kitchen went into our home. When it went in, we earmarked some space to hang some photos, bought frames and had decided to put B&W shots into the frames. While DM came up with five B&W shots, no problem, I couldn’t find anything at all that I was happy with in B&W.

The frames languished on my office floor gathering dust for nearly two years and this week, we have finally resolved the issue. David’s wonderful B&W photos will have their own space somewhere else and he has very graciously given over the space to my foodie pics. He’s sorted them, framed them and hung them while I’ve wimped about feeling queasy and they now hang proudly in the kitchen.

The round white blob on the bottom left is the reflection of one of the kitchen lights and with my limited skills I couldn’t get a shot with no reflections and this was the neatest of the bunch. (With the light off, window light reflected off lots of them and I don’t have a polarising filter that will fit this massive 12-24 lens. So, the light is in the shot!!!

For posterity, three rows of three, or indeed three columns of three – whatever, three times three is nine and here are my nine pics!

I took a shot of this space filled with David on his guitar (one of his fave spots in the house for a croon) eighteen months or so ago......the space was waiting to be filled for a long time.

Two years ago, I was watching grapes grow at Denbies Vineyard, while last year I was 'imitating art' by copying a pic from the cover of a book I'd read and loved.