1. We all lie on our backs with our paws in the air.

2. A very friendly tuxedo cat welcomes us to the cottage. He has the most perfect markings: even socks, a dapper moustache and the very tip of his tail is a crisp white too. A little later, I spot a completely black sibling on the window sill two houses down but they actually live next door to that: we see them following their dad up the secret garden built into the cliff.

2b. Higgledy piggledy houses; narrow cobbled streets, curving and free from traffic; and the hundreds of calling seagulls perched on the iron stained cliff: I heart Staithes.

2c. I stand on the … not beach, there is no sand at that point, only giant slabs of flat rock, broken up with pools. The sea is fierce – grey and angry – not far away but staying at a distance. I’m not far from the bend in the cliff but beyond it, I can’t see anything and behind me, everything behind the closest harbour wall is shrouded in fog too. It feels like I am at the edge of the world – no, the edge of existence.

3. As John naps, I sit Lily on my knee in the window seat. At first she is simply resigned to it (as she often is when we pick her up) but then she sees what I’m doing: her head turns so she can look at the harbour, then to the seagulls overhead, the people on the bridge… We sit and watch the world go by together until John wakes up.

4. The bistro is filled with pictures – lots of different styles and techniques but everything with a sense of fun. My favourites are probably the Leigh Lambert picture and the happy chihuahua.

4b. The cod cakes are rich and creamy – chunky but smooth at the same time. Later, I can’t believe the smoothness of cauliflower puree.

4c. The empty streets look magical in the mist. We wind our way home, and light a fire.

1. The orange of the chickens against the green leaves.

2. The necks of the pots sparkle when I flick on the light.

3. I expect it to start raining as soon as we step out of the door for our walk but it holds off. I enjoy the moss on the rock just beyond the squeeze stile, sit to let Lily graze on new grass in a small clearing and mimic the audiobook narrator’s characteristic pronunciation of certain words. Later, when the heavy rain does start, I find GingerCat sheltering in the wood store. Lily barks at him but Tilda is more inviting: she sits a little distance away and waits with him for the weather to pass.

4. The salad is sweet and tart and crunchy.

1. I call Kaufman from the balcony and as I turn to go back inside, I see him running along the path to the left of the house – he meows when he sees me: “I’m Kaufman, that’s me! Kaufman!”

1b. Thanks to Tilda’s reluctance to get in the cat basket, a wiff of TCP accompanies me throughout the day.

2. I’ve been trying to crack a design but I keep failing – it just won’t tile properly and the shapes aren’t right either. Then I take a step back and look at the pattern in a different way – the details aren’t in rotated squares, they’re in the spaces between circles.

2b. Drawing ideas for the pattern on graph paper of various sizes reminds me of creating or colouring similar intricate designs as a child: it conjures up the same feelings of pleasure and progress.

2c. Printable graph paper, with lots of different sized squares. The child/teenage version of me would be having kittens if she knew such things were just one click away. (She would also like the kittens.)

3. Strange and Lily sleep heavily on either side of me. The former adopts positions that, if they were upright and she was conscious, would be terribly active (she looks like she is running, or ready to pounce), while the latter twitches and pants as she chases dream squirrels.

1. Carving into leatherhard terracotta – geometric lines and curves that, unintentionally, look like the spines of fossils.

2. The long gardens visible from the bus; all neat after their Easter trims.

3. The excited lab runs around us, unable to control his direction or his tail. The little chihuahua at my feet doesn’t understand why it is still being called – one pair of wellies presumably looks much like another.

4. A pleasant surprise – the “some” crewel wool I bought on ebay turns out to be a “quite a lot” of crewel wool. The bag is full of the most delicious shades.

4b. I wind shiny cotton onto little plastic bobbins.

1. I haven’t exactly had a frantic Easter weekend but it is still nice to have a bonus pyjama day. Kaufman curls into my belly while we watch Game of Thrones.

1b. Someone – some cat – needs to teach Strange how to sleep properly. She is constantly faceplanted into the sofa, or has her front legs squished behind her at a peculiar angle.

2. I don’t realise I’ve been tensing until I relax, then I relax again and again. Finally my limbs go floppy.

3. Lily eating prawn crackers is, without a doubt, my favourite thing about getting a Chinese take-out.

1. We’re all relieved when he backs out of the very tight space without hitting the wall again.

1b. Kaufman welcomes us back from the walk then we – Lily, K and me – wait for John. Kauf and Lily sniff each other, which turns into a full-on face rub.

2. The leeks – which are kinda important when you’re making pork chops with creamed leeks – are past it. A quick search of the fridge and the internet provides as alternative: pork chops in a balsamic reduction, with sweet potato and carrot mash and a side of ratatouille. We don’t need no (literally) stinking leeks.

3. Little smooth blue stitches. I haven’t done quite as much sewing as I’d like but I’m making progress.