1. Listening for harmonies distracts me from my preoccupation.

2. We manage them just right and grumpy Lily isn’t overwhelmed by defensive T or B, the bumbling young pup. The three trot alongside each other and behave brilliantly.

2b. While J and D play the drums, I wrestle with the dogs on the floor. If it wasn’t for our old lady waiting in the other room, I’d have stayed hugging them all day, until we were all tuckered out from the exertion of it.

2c. The girls are shy when we first arrive but are telling us stories and burbling words (respectively) by the time we leave.

3. Strange is clingy, as she often is when we’ve heartlessly abandoned her at home for a few hours, and she nestles between us as we decompress. Later, she stretches out on John’s legs and he tickles her belly. Her little back legs stretch out with joy.

1. I’m tired but it’s so sunny that I *have* to do something outside, I *have* to do something towards this year’s growing. I sort out my seeds, retrieve the propagator and fill some trays with soil so I can sow my solanaceaes this week.

2. A little felt backing strengthens the join.

3. The dog’s chest wobbles as he walks towards us.

4. The cats and dog (and me) on the bed amongst the blankets and clothes.

5. The dish is lighter and fresher than a normal curry. It’s delicious too.

1. The latest (though not new now) Chris Ware masterpiece arrives: Building Stories, in its many parts, in its heavy box. Gorgeous to look, I can’t wait to read it.

1b. Trying to find a space for that, I end up reorganising the bookshelves – the graphic novels and the humanities and craft books primarily. My history books are all together again, which makes me happy, and I’m reminded of favourites to read again.

2. Another distraction from my day’s plan (which itself was a back up after I was too tired to go to the studio) – I end up fixing three pairs of jeans. At first the foot won’t sit right and a needle breaks but then I get into the flow of it and the patches become neater and stronger.

3. The blue pattern, traced onto the linen.

3b. I start doubting every stitch decision. It’ll either come together in the end or it won’t and I’ll have to try again. Either way I’ll have learnt a lot about both design and stitching techniques.

4. I don’t realise what John’s doing but then I get it and laugh. He presses ‘eject’ once again and the two cats sniffing the bluray player leap into the air again and again.

1. I bring up an old design and find lots of little ways to improve it.

2. Lily barrels down the steps, not caring what cats are in her way. Buffeted, Kaufman follows her down and from on top of the table, he playfully swipes at her as she potters about.

2b. I look back at the houses. The windows, lit from within, look so warm and cosy.

3. Compared to the blended, silky main yarn, this teal looks flat and boring. But at the same time there is something about its plainness. I imagine a neutral cloth with this yarn as a highlight, or a teal and white check.

1. Tilda wriggles on her back and pretends to attack my hand, but her claws are tightly away and I just get a light playful padding instead.

2. After we mention that the cats will destroy the new armchair we’re buying, the man at the till tells us all about his cat and of how she is utterly devoted to him. From his tone, it’s clear the feeling is mutual.

2b. I tell John that the trudge through the warehouse to the checkouts always reminds me of brainwashed people walking towards their doom or the slow walking survivors of an apocalypse on the road to who knows where. He knows exactly what I mean. I’m glad we can zip through the lines and be out, away from it all, in next to no time.

3. On the way home, we stop at some woodland for a walk. It’s a nice enough little wood, with a gentle wide beck running through it – much like “our” woods, or more specifically the woods over the road, to the south – but it also reminds me to be thankful for “our” woods, for having so many miles of pathways to explore, with all sorts of historic & natural features to enjoy. We really are lucky to live here and walk in them just about every day.

3b. While John is enjoying mispronouncing Fartown, a cocker and springer suddenly appear so we start with jokes about being in Spaniel Country. We decide it’s fitting that Fart-Town and Spaniel Country overlap.

1. Lily sits with her arm cocked over R’s leg and smiles at me. I think she likes her buddy.

1b. R laughs in the middle of my rant: he’s amused that, while talking, I’ve skinned the cherry jaffa cake and am waving around the round red jelly as I gesticulate.

2. To finally finish the draft of the report and send it out. There is still work to be done but the big job is out of the way now.

3. I move between the three sleeping cats – sleeping in their usual positions on the cushion, in the hammock and on the curve of the cat tree – and kiss all their heads.