1. Glazing goes well, building goes well and from one person or another, I learn lots of new things too.

1b. I knew that the “stoneware” cycle of the kiln went to about 1260c but I hadn’t thought about it in real terms – it’s too hard to quantify. Now I know it’s the temperature of the hottest bits of lava and inside the kiln the pots glow pale lemon, almost kissing white hot. I’m awed.

2. The cool sweetness of cucumber and sweet pepper in the salad cuts through the rich enchilada filling.

3. We enjoy our crafts: I ply the yarn I’ve spun while John practices songs – and comes up with new covers to play with. We “oooooh” with wobbling heads in Beatles parody to one song and it becomes a recurring joke of the evening.

3b. Winding yarn onto a niddy noddy the twisting it into a skein makes up for the fiddly end of plying. I count the threads to work out the yardage: 37g spun to about 300 yards – almost exactly the same as the last batch.