1. The glaze has not settled but is thick and heavy, double cream consistency.

1b. It’s amazing how we all take the same material and make it into such radically different things.

1c. After being comparatively delicate for two sessions, I stumble on a new technique for applying heavy texture. My bowl suddenly explodes with extra interest. (It’s hard working with coloured slips because they’re all just different shades of grey until they’re fired in the kiln – I have no idea how it’ll turn out really, and that’s half the fun.)

2. Strange turns from disgustingly wet to freshly fluffy in just a matter of minutes. The absorbent power of my jeans…!

3. A private road through the woods has been re-surfaced – much to the amused delight of John and Biscuit’s dad.

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.

1. Sometimes I think it’s a good thing when cats get distracted and walk away from a cuddle: if they didn’t, I’d stay stroking them all day.

1b. I appear in the living room doorway and Kaufman from the hammock, and Strange from the sofa, call out chirps of hello. Only Lily pads over to greet me though and she follows me as I cross to tickle the others.

2. Lily loves the long grass in the deers’ meadow. She jumps through it, cutting her own paths when the ones cut by others just don’t suffice. She stands chewing it and her tail swishes against the tall fronds.

2b. The different seed heads on the different types of grass. One is boring, the squat heavily clustered one you see everywhere, but another the others are finer, more elegant. I run my fingers through them and think of their cousins, wheat & rice.

3. We peek at the plot through the fence – it’s overgrown, and it’s disappointing that the site doesn’t have water, but there is a little shed and a little greenhouse, and the light looks good. We decide to take it.

1. The group of young people bustles in and without a hello or explanation, they’re asking us about our work. We show and tell, and they are polite and enthusiastic. I suspect at least one will be back to try their hand at things.

2. I think cleaning mirrors is just about my favourite chore – so much so that I shouldn’t really call it a chore.

3. After an evening of chatting with P, we continue chatting, just the two of us.

1. Blackcurrant bushes slumping under the weight of their fruit. Dozens of tiny, potential courgette flowers. Shocks of bright flowers amongst the evergreen. I’ve largely neglected it this year but the garden grows on without me.

2. I spend the afternoon playing with words and memories.

3. Curls of fur around the comb: white, brown, grey-black and soft ginger depending on which animal and where I’m combing. A clump of Lily’s fur rounds into a sphere, as delicate and fleeting as a dandelion seed head.