1. While the cat’s away, the mouse will have buttered noodles for lunch.

2. Someone has left the perfect skeleton of a leaf on the top of the stone wall, next to the squeeze stile.

3. Lily’s bright white and fluffy coat after she’s had a shower. I feel refreshed after mine too.

4. A lovely note with a parcel.

1. The task is both interesting and repetitive. I tell John that I quickly achieved “maximum alignment efficiently” and add that I think that sounds like something from Star Trek.

2. We come home to find a rainbow perfectly arched over our house.

3. John’s minestrone. Veg packed and oh so tasty.

4. On our dog walk, I told John about my childhood love of logic puzzles and how, since we only got given them very occasionally, I’d complete them in pencil so that I could erase the answers and do them again a few weeks later. Last time I remembered them, a good few years ago now, I failed to find any examples online but now there are lots of them out there. Goodbye evening.

4b. While I’m solving puzzles, we watch The History of the Future Folk: a sweet low budget film about an extra terrestrial folk band. The songs are pleasantly reminiscent of John’s old band, the Gillroyd Parade: both the music and the lyrics.

1. The design is pretty simple but I think I’ve put the elements together well. It is clean without being sparse, fun without being gaudy.

2. The narrow batons of vegetables lined up on the board.

2b. It’s too hot but in a good way. Afterwards we guzzle down banana milkshake to soothe our tongues.

3. To have the confidence to change things on the fly and to pull out stitches from the middle of the design to rework them better. Tomorrow I’ll pull out all the sky and redo it with shorter stitches. As with the bushes I repeatedly reworked, it would have been nice if it had been all right first time but it’s more important that it’s right in the end.

1. Yesterday, I did three hours of frantic, hard gardening – all digging and carrying really heavy things up and downstairs – because the weather forecast said it was going to rain today and just about all week. I’m exhausted at the end of it and ache all evening. It doesn’t rain after all today but thanks to past Louisa’s work, I can have a day off: the only things on my agenda are a dog walk and a fun sewing project.

2. “That one’s the best one,” John says pointing at the largest lamb chop. He’s right.

3. The work grows at an astounding rate: lots of pleasing clean lines.

3b. To have just the right colours in my leftover thread stash.

4. Moreish popcorn.

1. The clouds are smooth and the grey gradient of the sky gives the illusion of a massive mountain range just past Calverley. It makes us feel small.

2. A bacon butty, well, baguette-y, with brown sauce for dipping.

3. Watching the cats – without them knowing we’re watching – playing in the woodland next to the house.

3b. We have the doors and windows open to enjoy the freshness once again.

4. A ginger cat comes to visit, drawn by the lure of the equally ginger chickens. The three whippersnappers all go to meet her.

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.