1. I’ve found her almost cold in the past but this time she laughs at my stupid jokes.

1b. I walk home via the allotment plots and meet my plot neighbour. We walk through the weeds of my plot and I’m delighted to see they’re all mouth and no trousers ones – grasses and dock, rather than nettles and brambles. There are also some raspberry bushes and herbs already established on the edges, and two full barrels of water.

1c. He shows me around the rest of the site too: I see just huge, ruby red strawberries and a very content cat in a polytunnel. (There is also a cat sat on the step to my shed when we arrive. I hope to make friends with these kitties!)

2. I try graphing my pacing problem in different ways on different scraps of paper until one of them prevents a solution: there are too many beats at one note in that chapter. I start work on a more granular alternative and feel that suddenly everything makes a bit more sense.

3. When he wants milk, Kaufman is like Puss from Shrek – his ears flatten, his eyes widen and his mew is just pathetically cute.

3b. Lily wakes up from a dream to see John has returned. She creeps towards him – is he real? – and I hear her tail banging on the floor with delight.