1. My sage cutting finally have roots to pot on. The neat fibre modules. A shuffle around to encourage the long purple aubergines to catch up with the other varieties.

2. To lose an hour chatting about all the things that excite us.

3. I clear the last remaining bed: from here on in, at that plot at least, it’s just maintenance.

3b. Lily gets excited when it’s finally time to leave. She pulls me to the gate and then rushes us on to the park. It’s a good job they’re nearby.

4. We don’t have to wait long for John to come home.

1. Good croissants.

2. We’re playing on the bridge when we hear a loud moo. Around the corner we find a herd of young cows, who come closer, into the stream as we approach. We offer clumps of grass and get our hands licked in return.

3. Strange asleep in the narrow space between my legs. Later, turned over on her back, her lovely white paws hang softly above her.

1. I step into the woods to coppice a pesky sycamore and when I look up at the end of my job, a cat is rustling the undergrowth in one side of me and a hen is amongst the redcurrant bushes on the other.

1b. Blacksy the Black Rock hen lets me stroke her for the first time in years.

2. There’s a clear difference between my autumn and spring broad bean sowings: the firmer are growing inches every day and are far bushier than I’ve ever managed before.

2b. Inspired by my site mates, I set up a bamboo bean pole support. It suddenly makes my scratty, weedy plot look a whole lot more like a proper allotment.

2c. The netting perfectly fits around the frame, almost as if it was intentional. I should have room for dozens of pea plants, with room for a row of lettuce in the middle, taking advantage of their shade.

3. Lily rests her head on my leg as she sleeps. I’m a happy pillow.

3b. Strange has such a funny habit – of sitting down with either the front or back half of her body while the other half remains as it was, standing en route. It always makes us laugh.

1. After breaking the weaver’s block, I spend most of the day weaving – well, some weaving and a lot of tying loose ends when I cut the five towels off the loom. I’m surprised by the coloured bands I’d forgotten put on the earlier ones but like the simplicity of the bright lines on the later ones.

1b. The knots that go perfectly.

1c. I watch a fascinating geology documentary and learn that my stoneware pots are fired higher than the temperature required to melt granite.

2. Strange positions herself so that I have no choice but to tickle her.

3. My favourite muffins.

1. As has repeated happened on this course, my slapdash projects with my scraps result in nicer things than the planned out ones.

1b. Adding texture to my little discs. The simplicity of lines from the side of a metal scraper and the dimples from the plastic tool.

1c. R sees I’m struggling and offers me a bag. It makes the rest of my journey home a lot easier.

2. It’s a chatty dog walk – from S as we leave the house, to D with R-dog amongst the beech trees and B-dog and his dad for the rest of the walk home. B-dog sits down for the first time ever in our company (as we watch a video of him running in slow motion) and he looks like a very tidy dog indeed. (He usually rushes around so much that he’s less a dog and more a black furry blur.)

3. The massive doors of the old buildings around Little Germany.

3b. They top starters with a tempura onion ring. I like it.

3c. My meal is a flavour assault – the powerful hit of Tom Yum soup and a ridiculously sweet tamarind sauce over duck for my main – but I like that too.

1. I pull on a pair of jeans that I think don’t fit but in fact they do. It’s like getting a free pair of jeans :)

1b. I watch my neighbours’ laying a new lawn. A test patch of turf is laid out and J the dog sits on it to supervise the rest of the job. Later, F giggles as he pushes open the rolls, creating an instant green carpet.

2. Since I took my loom back upstairs before we went away a few weeks ago, I’ve had a reluctance to go up and finish the project (rainbow towels) on it. Today, when I realise I’m not going to make any further major clearout gains, I sit on the steps, the loom on my knee and throw the shuttle back and forth. I only do about six inches before it’s time to walk the dog but I’ve broken the embargo.

3. Lily stands in the kitchen doorway to tell John that he’s forgotten to hide her Bonio and could he do it now please? The whole time he’s hiding it, she stands with her nose to the crack of the now closed door, tail wagging in anticipation.