1. Vintage gouda and oak smoked cheddar – two excellent cheeses, too good to be the supporting cast to the rest of lunch really.

2. I take my remaining lettuce plugs to fill in the gaps where seedlings have wilted away in this week’s hot weather but when I look closely, I see that they’re all still alive after all. All the plants – the lettuce and the garden – are all picking themselves up and growing stronger every day.

2b. Soil, broken up then returned to the half bag, uniform and neatly weed free.

3. Lily loves it when her friends come to visit her. P tickles her and hugs her all evening while we chat. At one point, she pads at him for more attention and when he simply turns to her and says hello, she pulls the most wonderful, hilarious expression.

3b. I swish the drink around the can then listen to the fizzing.

1. It’s utterly silly, utterly impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t there in the moment, but we do a bit that makes us laugh. We spend a lot of the day locked into our own worlds but when we surface, the moments we have together are so very precious. Sometimes, when we tell people that we spend all day every day together, people reply that they couldn’t handle that much time with their loved one – that they’d get on each others’ nerves – but we think we’re very lucky indeed.

2. I dig a hole for the hosta that is the perfect size. The plant slips out of the pot and into the hole disturbingly neatly.

3. We go to see David Sedaris in Bradford. Unlike last year, when we were so close to the front that he was almost swallowed by the podium, we’re at the back, on the corner of the dress circle but his personality fills the whole space.

3b. I suck the fruit pastilles: first the layer of hard sugar melts down, then the hard jelly softens and shrinks until all that is left is an aftertaste.

3c. There is a queue at the car park paypoint – two shows coming out at once according to the attendant – so we walk around the block in the evening sun. An arts festival is being prepared in the gardens around the town hall but the thing that catches our eye the most is the setting sun turning far off glass towers to bronze.

1. Strange sits in the chicken run – sits perfectly still and relatively out of the way but it still worries the chickens. I remove her from the run and after a quick hug, she forgets her grumpiness to roll around in the sunshine. The chickens seem to recognise that the soft, silly kitty isn’t the threat they worried she was.

2. I’ve neglected the glass greenhouse at the plot thus far but today I fill it with grow bags. It suddenly bursts into productive busy-ness.

2b. The warmth of the soil from the plants in the plastic greenhouse.

2c. Lily’s eyes widen as I remove the Bonio from my pocket.

3. I listen to the This American Life radio drama episode (recorded last year but repeated as this week’s episode) while I’m at the plot and enjoy it so much that when I get home, I buy the video of it to watch with John. When I see the movement, I’m amazed by the stamina of the performers and the songs stay in my head for an almost infuriatingly long time.

1. My toothache is very conveniently timed – starting just a few days before a scheduled check up. It’s just wisdom teeth playing up a bit, nothing serious, and the rest of the check up is fine: I thought it would be the year for my first filling but … nope!

1b. The pastries shine under the lights.

1c. We take a walk in our old park – the one I lived next to for nine years, eating sweets and making poor taste jokes.

1d. We look back at the old house and spot a cat in the bedroom window. I’m glad to see it: it’s such a good house for cats.

2. To finally fulfill a food craving I’ve had for a couple of weeks (even if the actual food isn’t that great).

3. Tilda curls up with Lily at the bottom of the bed.

1. I know it’s harder to clean windows in the sunshine but the rainbows in the sprintzed water are just about worth it.

2. For the second time in a few days, a Twitter exchange really tickles me – not only because it’s funny but with the confidence it is started and structured, so it builds in humour with (presumably predicted) interaction. It tickles me on many levels.

3. The proof will, of course, be in the pudding vegetables, but I’m really happy with how my allotment has been going over the last few weeks. I’m finally able to transplant everything I’ve been growing at home and my “decision” to plant stuff creatively rather than in monoculture rows has meant it looks interesting as well as providing more output from the space (well that’s the hope). Today I planted out the lettuces that will grow in the shade of my peas, and the beans which will provide nitrogen bursts for broccoli raab and swiss chard.

3b. A carrier bag had landed on my compost heap – I’d seen it yesterday and assumed it was rubbish thrown from the footapth – but today, a passerby gets my attention and tells me he threw it over: it’s filled with leek and onion sets, his spares. He said he’s rather someone use them than let them go to waste; I promise him they will be used.

3c. Three clouds in the same shape over the forthcoming train station.

4. I think Lily standing on the armchair is the cutest thing that’s happened in ages, until she sits down, facing the back of the chair, her tail wagging over the ages: cutest thing ever.

1. A day started with bacon butties can never be a bad day – especially when the bacon is perfectly (ie a little but not too much) crispy.

2. I raid my seed box for things I can sow now – I think I might be addicted to starting off seeds. (I plant a full tray of lettuce, as a follow-up crop for the stuff in the ground now, and some smaller trays of lovage (which has failed directly in the ground) and calabrese.)

2b. Made from scrap wood and not at all square, they’re a slapdash job compared to the ones of a few weeks ago but another two beds are ticked off my to-do list.

2c. I take a pile of canes and a rolls of coated chicken wire to the other plot, assuming I’ll come up with a plan as I go. By the time I’m finished, I have a U-shaped support with 30 pea plants around its edge, and in the middle, facing the southern sun, even blocks of colourful swiss chard and lollo rosso lettuce. I do hope it all grows – it’ll be very pretty as well as productive.

3. Lily rolls on her back, head off the sofa and tongue lolling, as M tickles her belly.