1. Next door’s party marquee is still up. The rich, colourful cloths – adorning the ceiling and covering up the vertical supports – ripple in the breeze.

2. When I look more closely, there are lots of winter squash hiding under the vines.

2b. Two very heavy bags of produce.

2c. The heavy rain starts just as I reach the blind bend – if only I’d left the allotment a minute earlier. Still though, at least I didn’t leave the allotment five minutes later.

3. I usually make “dead veg and Polish sausage soup” – whatever veg is languishing in the bottom of the fridge – but today it is very much alive veg: the garlic, onions, runner beans, mange tout, courgette and three colours of carrots were all in the ground or on the vine just a couple of hours before.

1. I’m working on a new (granny stripe) blanket and every new colour makes me coo with delight. (It’s just cheap acrylic yarn, which I use for most of my blankets since they need to be hardwearing/easily washe), but the more muted colours from the range, and they go together beautifully.) John gets bored of me enjoying them so much.

2. I repeat the “plooooooop” noise my phone makes whenever I lock or unlock the screen.

2b. I look up from my crochet to see the grey sky and rush outside to gather in the washing. The downpour suddenly starts just – to the second – after I step back inside with the full basket.

2c. Because of humidity then dog-walk-wetness, we both end up bare legged in the later afternoon.

3. Chatty cats – Strange launches into a monologue when she comes home at lunchtime (I don’t think we’d seen each other much the previous day so we had things to share) and while Tilda makes cheeky little “oi! oi! look at me!” mew as I walk up the stairs.

1. The muggy weather leaves me feeling awful – I can do little other than slump on the sofa. I feel so much better when it finally rains.

1b. John hands me an umbrella for the short dash to the door.

2. They go off on one so we take charge and decide what we’re having.

2b. The gelato delivery is late and a little melted when it arrives but, you know, it’s still gelato delivered to our door at 11pm at night, so it’s still pretty awesome.

2c. We try a new game – one based on the X Files. We’re all confused to start with – the instructions are long and not always clear – but once we learn the basics, we enjoy the scheming and game play mechanics. (It also gives me hope that we might return to another couple of games we previously abandoned for being too complicated.)

3. The fox stands in the road looking at us, then takes off towards the grassy bank.

1. When writing flows – both the individual sentences and the segues between topics.

2. Leftovers for lunch. Cold roast chicken tickles some deep memory – I don’t know what but it’s a good memory.

3. Lily helicopter-tails into the kitchen as soon as she realises one of her friends is in there. She does like it when her friends come to visit her.

1. More of my recent book purchases arrive, including one the author signed with the note “be splendid!”. What a splendid choice of words.

2. I offer to sous chef for John, washing and slicing the kilogram of runner beans I brought back from the plot the day before. As he watches my pleasantly repetitious actions, I think he regrets my help.

2b. The smell of slow roasted tomato sauce.

2c. I take a load of veg scraps down to the chickens. I notice one of the birds particularly likes berries so I pull some neglected tiny redcurrants off the bush near the seed trunk. She quickly collects them all before anyone else gets a look in.

3. I dig through my box, sorting out my WIP projects and things that need framing. I’ve forgotten how good some of the pieces are, and how little is needed to finalise them.

3b. Tilda has a wappy five minutes attacking my t-shirt and my hand.

1. The tinkling of a small cat’s bell.

2. A plethora of potential pumpkins.

2b. We sit in the shelter for the worst of the rain. I snap some photos of Lily, posting my favourite to Twitter. Later, I use it for my new phone’s lock screen and keep marvelling/awwing at it all evening.

3. My Jamaican fish stir fry made mostly from veg from the allotment: onions, garlic, mange tout, carrots in two colours and the mandatory courgette.