1. I hear the clink of the gate, and look up expecting it to be another plotholder – well, I guess it is technically. John and Lily let themselves in and I show them around all the changes.

1b. The hens pull at the dandelion leaves. I’d nearly not bothered to bring any weeds home for them but they attack them with such abandon that I’m glad I did.

2. The best burger I’ve had in a long, long time. John cooks them with ghee, onions and garlic, and drapes them in smoked cheese. Fab.

3. I count up my crochet squares: I’ve done more than I thought. I’ll start the final push tomorrow.

3b. My girls, sitting with me as I hook. Strange, by my side, purrs whenever I stroke my lap lady, Tilda.

1. We both have a bad day – nothing major, just a grumpy stream of frustrations and annoyances – but become neither irked or cranky with the other.

2. Every time I think the greenhouse is full, I manage to rejig things and fit in another couple of trays.

3. The vivid green of the leaves on the birch saplings.

1. G changes the lid on the pot and it transforms it from something bland to something fun.

1b. A freshly cut grass verge distracts me as I rush to the bus stop.

1c. A convenient red light stops the bus as I rush to the bus stop.

1d. The bus smells like sesame seeds.

2. After the halfway hump, I change how I count: I’m no longer concerned with how many I’ve done but how many I have to go. (24 by the end of the evening.)

3. Tilda sits in the dip of my lap, looking very small indeed. She stays until my legs are beyond asleep but still, I don’t disturb her.

3b. Kaufman and Strange join her on my knee: the first time in nearly two years that they’ve all sat on me at the same time.

1. Kaufman is cuddly all day. In the evening, he and Strange have a cuteness competition: he wins the aural medal but she wins the trophy for cuteness while upside down.

2. A cob of good white bread.

3. One of those really satisfying spot squeezes.

1. The refreshed troughs look … clean with their new flat layer of soil.

2. John has to pop to the supermarket before it closes and when he gets back, we have chocolate eclairs – because it would have been rude for him to have gone to the shop and not bought cream cakes.

3. The jewel-like colours of the different liquid soaps.

4. All day, it feels like I don’t go more than a few minutes without being accompanied by one cat or another: just how I like it.

4b. To take a drink, Tilda stands with her feet on the edge of Lily’s water bowl – impossibly cute.

1. Our journey is passed by exchanging information: what we’ve heard and learnt this week.

2. We flip the day around and it works well. A good meal, donuts and book buying, then a walk in the park and chores that feel they’re making progress on long over due things.

2b. Binoculars provide a new perspective on a familiar scene.

2c. John calls for us to look at the moon. Even without a tripod, we can all see craters and the texture of the rock.

3. A bright star seems to perpetually catch my eye on the way home. Arcturus, I think.

3b. The other side of the carriageway is slightly higher so the headlights stream through the barrier in the most beautiful way.