1. The sun is bright but the air is a touch chilly. John finds it a little uncomfortable (because he is a wuss), but I like it a lot.

2. I’m surprised when a larger than normal bowl rises from the mound.

2b. My hands are always dry after working with clay and they make my hair feel rough in the shower. It’s not a directly beautiful thing – it feels horrible (though not quite as horrible as clay dry hands + microfibre cloth, bleugh!) – but it reminds me that there are few absolutes in the world that aren’t affected by our observation of them, and our observation can be broken.

3. John makes a batch of his slow-cooked pasta sauce. The house smells fantastic all afternoon: I almost want to chew the air.

1. A fresh cool breeze chills my arms as I make the tea.

2. A great haul of books from Oxfam, a light fresh cake and a series of puns as we walk through the city centre.

2b. “Hold on, I’m just putting that on Twitter,” the older woman says as she sits near the window in the charity shop.

3. The kids run towards us as we leave the alley way. “That’s the best dog we’ve seen today,” they say as they rush forward to stroke her. We tell them we know.

3b. The glowing sunset. The misty hills.

1. The dappled texture of sponged on slip.

2. We walk to the end of the road and back across the top of the quarry – a path we used to walk regularly but one we haven’t done for a while. It gives Lily time to file her nails on the tarmac and for us to nosey at the building work being done at various houses, enjoy late flowers blooming in the kerb-side flower beds and spot mushrooms in the undergrowth.

3. I offer Kaufman a leftover pea but like any sane being, he turns his nose up at it. Lily watches on: “I’ll have it, I’ll have it!” She snaffles it from my fingers then asks for more. Tail wagging, she follows me into the living room so that I can show John the old dog’s new trick, then she bounces to (naughtily) snatch her new favourite snack from my hand. We laugh at her smiling face.

It’s five years today since we bought our crazy house. I would like to say we’ve made it less crazy – since we got rid of the strangest decoration and colour schemes – but I think the reality is we’ve just made it differently crazy. We still have a window in a wardrobe but have added to that by finding a window underground, two hidden rooms and a secret hatchway through to next door. It’s ugly, weird and strangely proportioned – much like its occupants.

1. I love my breakfast cereal. Sometimes I eat it a little thoughtlessly – ploughing through it before getting on with my day – but other days like today, I relish every mouthful.

2. To get the hang of something, even if it is just for a moment. I get the rhythm and move my hands automatically before I start to think about it too much and I lose it again. It gives me hope though.

3. To give in to temptation and buy the naughty garlic bread.

1. At lunchtime, we realise that neither of us has seen Kaufman since we woke up. We stand on the balcony and call his name: within a minute, a meow echoes up from near the chicken run then a face appears. He calls to us and we wave and meow back at him. He runs up the three flights of stairs, chatting the whole way and in the kitchen, we reward him with milk.

2. The bowls are *just* soft enough to turn. For once, I remember what my tutor said about taking the time to look at the bowl properly before you start to turn it: to see where it needs reducing and where it is already fine. I’m rewarded with the opportunity to try out a new (to me) type of foot and produce my favourite bowl yet.

3. The allotments are so much nicer now that one of two abandoned plots on the other side of the path has been reclaimed.

3b. I’m slowly picking away at things: I prune my summer-fruiting raspberries, I pick weeds from around the pak choi and start weeding the next overrun bed.

3c. Walking around the park, Lily takes a wide circle around what I describe to my mum as “a big, terrifying ferocious dog”. The lad walking the other hound smiles at the description of his Yorkshire Terrier.

3d. There is another, bigger, allotment site at the top of the park. I ogle at the precise, neat rows of the corner plot, with pure allotment envy.

0. I wake up from a rather cathartic dream and feel much better (both from the dream and from having 12 hours of sleep).

1. The treadling is such hard work that I feel disheartened. I can’t believe though that it’s either that inefficient or that my calf muscles are too weak to do it properly – not after leaving in hilly Yorkshire for 14 years. I systematically investigate different things and apply drops of oil in the right places until the movement is smooth and easy.

2. To have a beloved top to fall back on when everything else feels a bit meh.

3. Rather than being left alone while we go out for dinner, Lily goes to see her BFF Maggie-dog next door. We look out of the window and see the girls running around the decking together.