1. On Wednesday, I woke to snow: the beck at the bottom of the garden snaked a black gash through the white. Yesterday, the rain melted the snow and the beck gushed with grey. Today, I wake to blue sky: the water glistens silver in the sunshine.

2. The jokes flow as fast as the blood from my finger.

3. Concentric circles float away from the happy white dog.

4. Loud bursts of laughter.

1. I pull a red-striped sock from the inside of blue-striped one. It makes me feel like a magician.

2. To have no fear of the falling snow because I know my boots will keep my feet warm and dry.

2b. Silly transport issues grant me a surprise night off. I unpack my bag with a heavy heart – the Valentine’s Day themed games I’d planned will go unplayed, the lesson plan I had proudly concocted will go untaught – but I receive several hours of writing, then dinner with John and time sewing to compensate.

3. The feature-less colour blocks seem completely abstract until the final stitch of each piece is in place, then the shapes come to life.

0. I can’t remember how old I am when people ask, or what the date is on a given day – both have to be worked out involving counting on fingers – but birthdays of people from my past are indelible inked on my brain. Happy birthday J.

1. The paper looks like it’ll do nothing bar generate plumes of smoke then suddenly, whumph! The kindling above it glows and cracks.

2. To have focus for a change, an ongoing task that captivates and excites me. In the background, other, diverse, ideas jostle to be next.

3. The loudest sniffs in the world as Lily looks for her treat-stuffed toy.

0. (From the weekend) A cluster of blood red french knots.

1. Due to a failure of both teacher and student, Lily fails to learn a new trick (“paw”) but is so cute in her efforts that she gets the treat anyway. (Though that in itself is a further failure of the teacher.)

1b. She licks her lips and rubs her nose as she wakes up. Has she been eating eggs in her sleep?

2. The sloppy sheet of snow hangs off the greenhouse roof, like a cold buckled blanket on an unmade bed.

3. A duet of slurps as we dunk our Wispas in tea then suck away the warm, melted chocolate. (It is a proven fact that Wispas are THE BEST chocolate bar for dunking in tea but as with all wonderful things, best done in moderation to ensure the moment is always special.)

1. Carla’s prerps and chirps, her coos and mews. She chatters away, sleepily content.

2. Looking through historical photos for research, I find a picture of my old house in Liverpool dating from 1970 (I lived there 1999-2000). I am surprised both by finding the picture in a random city-wide archive and by how little it changed, from the outside at least, in the intervening 30 years.

3. To see confidence blooming in different people through performance and basic questions.

3b. Having a calm, reasonably focused group for once.

0. On a day filled with discussion of equal marriage, I found some documentaries and clips about marriage (and cohabiting/attitudes towards sex) from the late 1950s and 1960s – exactly what I need for some research, a real treasure-trove. Thanks BBC archive!

1. The soup is momentarily put on hold while we watch the deer from the kitchen window. She’s in the clearing just on the other side of the elder tree, still and watching something in the woods in the opposite direction from our house. The wet snow falls steadily around her and she shakes it from her fur with a silver spray.

2. We exchange stories with the woman in the woods about our lovely rescue Springers. Just a little bigger than Lily and perfectly mannered, I hope we meet Charlie again.

3. I play a track thinking it’s something else and we’re surprised to hear a warm piano, later joined by just the haunting voice. We forget the original track we were looking for.