1. We hear Kaufman before we see him – he’s spotted his big sister Lily is in the garden and he meows hello to her his whole way up the steps. When we let him into the office, he mews and mews his news, then sits on the sofa for a wash: when he holds and licks the tip of his tail, I melt into a puddle.

2. The final letter of the stencil drops a few centimetres as I’m setting them on the clay – oh hello, that looks much better than them all in a line.

2b. I throw my first (post-course) perfect cylinder on the wheel then transfer it to a board without squishing it. (I then drop it, destroying it, but let’s focus on the first bit, eh?)

2c. A fat, wide cylinder to finish.

2d. I don’t expect the texture of the broken down clay – it looks grainy, like cous cous, but is so wet that moves like liquid. We pull big dollops out of the bucket and slop them onto the slab.

3. Just as the bus arrives, the plastic bag handles stretch and break – it is such a slow process that I have time to lower the back to the floor (so my pots don’t smash) and for the lady in front of me reach into her bag to hand me a spare carrier.

(My 35th birthday)

1. Pancakes – good fluffy ones with fruity honey and lemon juice – and crispy bacon.

1b. We rewatch the 30 Rock finale over breakfast. I’m reminded that it’s a lovely combination of sentimentality and funny, saying goodbye to characters while remaining true to them.

2. Watching the cats run down to the chicken coop with John. Kaufman gets a tickle on the head while Strange explores the heuchera.

2b. It’s a year to the day since we first met the kitties at the RSPCA. They were in the first little pen we looked in – three little mewing faces, pawing at the glass. We spent two hours that evening swapping potential names back and forth across the restaurant table.

3. The air conditioning in the bar is a little too chilly but in the restaurant, it’s perfect.

0. The coolness washes over us as the rain takes the heat out of the night.

1. Underneath the tall, spindly trees, the heavy leaves trap clouds of moisture – you can see the steam circling from the house. It’s exactly this weather condition that causes people to say our gardens are like the rainforest.

1b. We find the source of the bad smell and eliminate it.

2. We sit on the footstool together – me and John and Lily and Strange.

2b. Soaked in the rainstorm then fresh from the shower, Lily wriggles and grunts on John’s pillow.

3. The windows frame the blood red crocosmia.

3b. Like with my Wayne’s World cap earlier in the week, I sporadically wear my Hello Kitten penguin mask during the evening.

1. The magical moment when the colours appear.

1b. I’ve been worried about how to glaze my bowls but it turns out my hand is forced: I glaze the insides and leave the outsides to the reduction, aside from a few accidental/deliberate spatters for interest. I love how they turn out.

1c. There is a thorn in my heel as I walk back from the bakery – each step is agony. Afterwards, after I remove it, there is a pleasant echo of the pain whenever I put my weight on it – pleasant because it’s a relief that’s all there is.

1d. I turn the bowls to make curves and feet. The clay peels off in curls.

1e. My favourite Minoan bull cracks before I get any good photos of it but, like with the cracked bird feeder, it’s fantastic to be able to look inside: to see how far the carbon penetrates the clay body.

2. ‘Summertime’ (not the Gershwin one) is on the radio. It hasn’t dated as much as I would have thought for a song from a) 1991, b) by people called DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. (The song has aged better than their names, that’s for sure.)

3. My pillow is a wonderful place. Why did I not visit it sooner?

1. I make myself laugh with some ridiculous hyperbole.

1b. Satisfying callbacks make a piece hang together better than it should.

1c. I “kill my darlings”. The resulting post is much cleaner and coherent as a result – and I can save the jokes for another time.

2. We don’t usually have magnums at home – they’re a “at the theatre only” thing – so these are a delicious, special treat.

3. Their ears stand up as he calls their names. I release them and they run down the stairs side by side.

1. We compose jingles for the things we see.

2. I make this observation to John and he laughs.

3. We meet two shy dogs in quick succession – the collie sticks to the undergrowth to protect her stick while the afghan waits until we step out of the way, then zooms down the path to catch up with his mum, his long locks flowing as he runs.

3b. The woods are humid and I’m very sticky – then a welcome rain shower starts. (The leaf canopy protects me from most of it, so I end up pleasantly cooled rather than soaked.)

3c. I lie on the living room floor. A breeze drifts in from the door, from the window. The air slowly becomes fresher.