1. Crumpets with lemon curd.

2. To get all the wood over to the allotment without any accidents. The glorious moment when a sawn piece of wood gives. To think of all the ways the new edging will make things better.

3. A car journey of spoiler sharing and slightly mindblowing (though easily unpickable) realisations.

1. The fat leaves of the pumpkin plants get rounder every day.

1b. Kaufman’s back legs dangle as I carry him out of the chicken run.

2. We met a young springer in the park. When we first see him at a distance, he looks to have similar markings to Lily and when she stares at him, we voice her confusion about whether she’s looking through a portal into the past. Then I correct it to “a portly into the past”.

3. John giggles at how cute Strange and Lily are when they sleep next to each other.

1. I feel myself reinflating as the painkillers kick in.

2. R looks around the gardens then has a conversation with the chickens.

3. I read a French phrase on Duolingo and afterwards, I realise that I’ve understood it without having to consciously translate it.

3b. A day sucked up by go-nowhere arguments online but between us, we still make breakthroughs which help our understanding and will strengthen our position in the future.

1. It’s ridiculously early but ridiculously sunny and beautiful out of the window. I’m almost not annoyed that I can’t sleep. *Almost*.

1b. Lily won’t look at me, then I realise she is – via the mirror. Mirror-Louisa taps the bed and she jumps up.

2. My mega Meeple isn’t quite perfect but I still like him a lot. In the end, after much frustrating experimentation, I’m glad that I abandoned my original plan of a uniform colour: one mistake in a uniform glaze ruins it; a large issue with the dappled glaze almost enhances it.

2b. The crowd isn’t right for the joke I want to make about the cylinder of deep green clay but I tickle myself with Hulk penis silliness anyway.

2c. Finding the right texture eventually.

3. I try to describe how gorgeous Lily looks on the top of the hill in the sunshine but before I can manage it, she’s off again into the deers’ meadow and – oh! disturbs a sleeping deer! She doesn’t notice as it stands up and makes it away down the scrub at the side of the glade.

1. I write a to-do list for the week and tick half of it off without really trying.

1b. This funny cat:

2. Possibly a carry over from our old north-facing back to back, I always feel like our house is quite dark (especially when compared to, say, my mum and dad’s house) so I’m pleasantly surprised when the rooms are daylight-bright.

3. A selection of flavours and textures.

1. The person I don’t like doesn’t stay in the room for very long.

1b. The smoothness of the glaze on the spatula – if only I could glaze pots as neatly!

2. John holds Lily on his knee and she looks very regal indeed.

3. Tilda sits with me for the first part of Game of Thrones.

3b. Strange pads at Lily’s mane and head. Lily turns to sniff the paw and when she realise it’s Strangey, she goes straight back to sleep.

3b. As I’m going to bed, I tell all the cats to come upstairs with me. They all do (though they only stay a short while).