1. I have my favourite lazy noodles for lunch. I often suggest them as a last resort but they’re secretly much higher on my list.

2. I fill the pots and troughs in the front garden with spring bulbs.

2b. A chore I’ve been meaning to do for months – I pull up the grass and the weeds from where they’re grown in the cracks around the curb. The grass comes out with a flat bed of roots.

3. We’re late but the jokes start straight away.

3b. Doing impressions of Sean Bean as we walk down the road.

3c. The restaurant is just what we all need: D, E & O have delicious kebabs and we have puddings – John gushes about his cornflake tart all the next day.

1. John realises that the white tin loaf we bought the day before is perfect bacon butty bread.

2. I spend most of the afternoon reading – more of ‘Prep’ in French. On our dog walk, I tell John that while I’m understanding about half of it without really trying, it’s strangely the portion that I’m consciously having to translate that feels more rewarding.

3. The tan dog reminds me of a dog we nearly adopted right back in the day – one with even more social issues than Lily. I watch this one putter about the woods and hope the other is just as happy, wherever he is now.

1. Lily and Tilda share the tuna water. John tells me how Tilda runs with optimum tail efficiency (ie low and streamlined) until she gets near me then her tail shoots up to vertical.

2. I write up another stream of memories. Some seem inconsequential, others more important but who knows what I’ll find interesting to revisit in the future.

3. I finally make the paneer and chickpea curry I’ve been meaning to make for weeks – it’s worth the wait.

1. I have inadvertently dressed myself like a pink grapefruit – a deep coral pink vest under a golden yellow (and white) top. The colours are both autumnal and fresh at the same time.

2. The mozzarella on the sandwich is warm, smooth and elastic.

2b. The little shop has an amazing beer (and cider, and wine, and whiskey) selection – juxtaposed with displays of random Post Office supplies.

2c. We’re away less than an hour but the wood shavings & straw has made the car smell like a hamster cage.

3. We have a quiet evening reading.

1. To finally recall a familiar taste from the past – it’s been bugging me all week.

2. As I fetch in the washing, I hear a bell tinkle behind me. When I turn around, I see the two cats from next door watching me from the fence. A few months ago, when R was a little kitten, they were mortal enemies but now they seem to be friends – probably ganging up to take on our anti-social felines.

3. John’s cold makes him sound even more like Tom Waits than usual. He records his version of Tango Til They’re Sore and when he plays it back to me, it takes me until a particularly Yorkshire vowel sound before I’m sure he’s not tricking me by playing the original.

1. Annoyed that someone has stolen two of my pumpkins from my plot and about hearing how a friend’s employer is messing him (and vulnerable customers) around in a dodgy way, I get angry with how selfish the world seems to be these days. I try to think about people acting decently and an image from half an hour earlier pops into my head: on the way over to the plot, I saw two people we know and a third person working on the community garden at the crossroads.

1b. Bags full of runner beans – probably our last huge harvest of them, close to 15lbs today alone, but there will be more trickling in until the first bad frost. A handful of red tomatoes and goji berries. Two perfect courgettes.

1c. We meet a puppy in the park – such a little cutey that even grumpy Lily can’t get annoyed with him. He runs over for some attention and, with a triumphant air, steals a bean from one of the bags. His mum uses it as a throw-stick to lure him away from us.

2. I notice that the wood on the footboard at the end of the bed is slightly smoother on John’s side than on mine.

3. A pack of Fruitella Crunchies and kitten videos on Youtube.