1. We visit Cartwright Hall and make funnies amongst the artwork. We both enjoy the Tai-Shan Schierenberg exhibition, and John is also inspired by the Lichtenstein print and the giant wire sculptures at the front of the building. I like some of the textile pieces and point out the burial goods made with Egyptian paste – I’ll be making my own versions of those in a few months.

2. The room grows darker as we chat then the deluge begins. It’s the heaviest rain I’ve seen in a long time – it’s almost hypnotic to watch.

2b. A moment of unintentional but well-timed comedy with an umbrella.

2c. The beck is as busy as I’ve ever see it – topping the bank on the far side and lapping over the footpath at the curve slightly downstream. I watch it flow until the rain drives us back inside.

3. Using a blanket as bait (she loves woolly blankets), Tilda cuddles into me on the sofa. It’s taken a while but we’re slowly bringing her out of her shell. (In the bedroom, she’s been a cuddler for months but is still quite aloof in the rest of the house.)

1. Brill-iant fish puns. [Inspired by this nonsense.]

2. Lily and I step out onto the patio and are immediately set upon by the three cats – sniffing and meowing hello.

2b. Lily has to sleep on the rug – her head on the beanbag – because Kaufman is on the sofa. Later, she gets to sit on the sofa, but when Kaufman returns, she sits up, leaning away over the arm, to be as far away from him as possible.

2c. The White-Bellied Crew go to Wood Hill. When I stand up to head home, they both bound through the long grass and into the trees.

3. The man from the art gallery has moved his easel outside to enjoy a little late afternoon sun. He chats to a passerby while he draws.

1. John suddenly decides to tidy his desk and I copy him. Mine looked worse than it was – it takes little more than closing an open binder (trapping all my scruffy notes inside) and a wipe down with a cloth to make it look considerably neater.

2. A chord progression on his guitar reminds me of Billy Bragg and John launches into a good impersonation.

2b. Dancing with Lily – well, she just watches and wags her tail when I do her favourite moves – then playing catch with her bone.

3. I’ve been watching the squat dog running around for my whole walk up the path but it is only when I get close that I see that the dog is chasing a laughing little boy – then it flips around and the laughing little boy is chasing the dog. Their dad walks steadily behind them, presumably happy that they’re tiring each other out.

1. I procrastinate unbelievably during the morning but when I look back, I realise some of my distractions have actually been useful, and I can tick off some chores from my mental list.

1b. A fun coincidence – I pick something from a long list for its meaning, and it turns out to have a connection to my childhood best friend.

2. A butterfly rests on the purple wall in the dining room. It looks fake but isn’t.

3. For some reason, Lily is super excited about going on a walk. She bounces around the dining room like a .. well, not a puppy, that’s going a little far, but like a … let’s say a nine year old dog.

4. The prawn and crab cakes are a little crumbly but the steak that follows is absolutely delicious.

4b. We keep seeing members of staff walking across the car park and – since we’re not paying close enough attention – not coming back. We concoct strange stories about what is going on down there and when we ask the next waiter about it, he says he wishes our theories were true: he would love it to be a secret staff lounging lair. (It’s just the bins, and the staff car park.)

1. I alternate very careful, precise brushwork with spattering and making a right old mess. It’s pleasing to continue building up the layers of texture and colour.

1b. Wiping each foot makes the bowl ring out in a different way.

1c. The bus pulls up while I’m waiting to pay in the shop. I will the queue to move faster and the bus to wait longer – and both happens.

2. Lily, wearing her hairy trousers (though we think hairy hotpants would be more appropriate in this weather), minkles through the woods. Her tail wags cheerfully – not a frantic overexcited beat but a calm back and forth.

3. Enchiladas for dinner – stuffed with beans, peppers and chicken (though I forgot to add any chilli, ssh don’t tell John).

3b. Explaining the fajita/burrito/enchilada/chimmichanga (and quesadilla, though they’re a bit different) sequence to John.

4. I enjoy Google’s venn diagram doodle but am aware it does not have a box around it. When I was in year 8, my best friend at the time scored 99% on a maths exam – the missing mark was for not enclosing her venn diagram in a neat rectangle. I always remember this when drawing venn diagram.

1. A quick buzz over with the angle grinder and a wipe around with a cloth, and already the wheel looks so much better. I suspect, once it’s had its fresh coat of Hammerite, it’ll look very fancy indeed.

2. The weird cat sits on the flat stone next to the front gate, curls up and falls asleep. A few minutes later, a beagle woofs at him.

3. We meander through the streets rather than the woods, so I can check on the allotment on the way. It is the wrong time of day – and our bellies are at the wrong stage of fullness – for a walk that passes two curry restaurants, a Chinese takeaway, a fish’n’chip shop and lots of houses filled with good cooks. Every road has its own gorgeous smell and we’re drooling by the time we get home.