1. I find out about how more things work, this time from a friendly delivery driver.

1b. I’m pleasantly surprised by some of the items on the shopping – I’d forgotten that I’d ordered them. I’m almost tempted to leave a greater lag between ordering and delivery just to enhance the Christmas morning-like surprises.

2. Last week I was struggling with something but today it comes together. It’s still bitty, it still needs more smoothing into shape but it feels like a possibility now.

3. Strange meows to announce she’s brought us another present. It’s not a stay-away growl by any means: she’s happy to share her catch.

3b. I leave a hungry Lily in the kitchen while I empty the bins. I return expecting to tell her off for snaffling the cats’ food but instead she’s in the living room, batting around her own (practically empty) food cube. I feed my good girl.

1. The building scent of slow roasted spare ribs.

2. In different subsets and all together, the colours look brilliant together. It’s one of those projects that you hope doesn’t end, just so you can keep playing with the different combinations.

3. Ahead of the finale, we rewatch some recent GoT episodes. We catch nuances and hints buried amongst the dialogue, and still hold our breath at the same time again.

1. To start to turn an odd, fleeting idea into reality – and to make it stranger still.

1b. By and large, the clay manages to dry at the exact speed I need it to: it’s a pleasure to work with, rather than fighting against, it.

1c. Peeling back the mask to reveal the birds.

1d. I carefully turn over the bowl to check and yes, the legs are just right – they hold it on the desired angle and are stable. Only two outer ones hover but G says “but it’s walking, so some of its feet will be off the ground”. Suddenly my odd bowl is a peculiar creature. I like it.

2. We dogsit while our dapper neighbours go to a wedding. Maggie greets me at the door when I come home and Lily, usually the super excited one, bumbles after her to calmly bring me a shoe.

2b. Her miniature size is a novelty, especially when she does things like real dogs do. She “SIT”s like a robo-toy; she builds herself a nest on a single cushion; and she struggles to carry around one of Lily’s bones.

2c. It takes a while for everyone to settle down but when we do it is cute: John stretched out on one end of the sofa, then Maggie, then Strange, then me using Lily’s bum for a pillow. (It proofs to me that we definitely have room for more animals.)

2d. I think Lily likes having her buddy over, and especially having a buddy join her for a walk, but I think she likes it even more when she’s an only child once again.

3. I’m achingly tired by bedtime and as I stagger into the bathroom, I jokingly ask John if he’ll wash my face. When he accepts, I picture it like a facial at a spa but instead he takes hold of my wrists and works my hands himself. Imagine a muppet washing its face: all jagged actions and fingers getting caught in nostrils. As we fling handfuls of water at my face, John is crying with laughter into my back.

(Happy birthday, S!)

1. We all embrace new techniques and our work gets rather more interesting.

1b. Shipley smells of curry. I want to eat all the curry.

1c. We eat the cornetto-reos and catch up on our afternoons.

2. We chat to Charlie’s mum and Biscuit’s dad. The former looks like he’s highlighted his hair while the latter runs over and rolls onto his back as we approach (I’m not bigheaded enough to think I’m special to him, he’s just a rather friendly little dog).

3. The water silently swirls then disappears.

1. The line full of washing. The sun makes the tree’s bark glow.

2. It always takes me a few weeks to like my new haircut and colour but I’m already happy to have lost the straggly dead weight.

3. Finding out how things work: first, a diverse business model and then choreography of fight scenes.

4. The soft fizz of dissolving meringe.

1. John’s mum brings over a lasagne. That’s dinner sorted then.

2. Cramming in as many jokes as possible in the time it takes for him to walk from his desk to the door.

3. Strange grabs and bites the tip of her own tail. I may have had something to do with it.