0. Lily had been very quiet and confused – not asking for her Bonio, getting scared when taken for her bedtime wee – on Monday evening, worrying us both. I wake to the sounds of her usual madcap morning antics.

1. He’s rather overwhelmed by Lily at first but laughs with delight when we convince him to feed her a treat: her whiskers do tickle.

2. April showers come early: the afternoon is a mix of glorious spring sunshine and rainstorms. The former make me feel guilty for not going to the allotment but the latter, which seem to come at ten minute intervals and often feature sleet or hail, stop me feeling quite so guilty.

2b. We made a mistake coming into the woods in such windy weather but Lily’s tail tells us she’s happy enough to walk home up the road.

3. I almost don’t want to progress my weaving skills: basic plainweave is soothingly repetitive.

3b. I finally conquer the crushing pressure of desired perfectionism to return to my crewel flower project.

1. Teamwork produces a leftover sausage and roast veg omelette for lunch: delicious.

2. When my little men kill the computer’s little men.

3. More drawing: boxes and boxes filled with evolving designs. This is how I’ll find my voice.

1. We take a short break to hoover (John) and hang out some laundry (me), and those ten minutes make the house look ten times neater.

2. My feet seek out a warm spot on or under John. It really does feel like my feet are in charge of finding a space, though they need my mouth to ask him to move his hard wallet so they can curl around his thigh.

3. John remarks that he hasn’t been in the horses’ field for months, because it’s “soggy and muddy”. Out of the corner of my eye – and too late to stop it, I see Lily settling down in a boggy bit of a sometimes stream: “speaking of soggy and muddy…” I say. It gives us the excuse to walk home along the beck path. Two becks in two days – Lily is in heaven. She dashes in and out of the water, washing off the gathered mud.

3b. I have a strange moment at the bottom of Wood Hill: it’s so familiar to me but feels distant because I haven’t stood there for some time. It feels like I’m in a film, in a memory.

4. I’ve taken to drawing while we re-watch the last season of Game of Thrones. I combine my ongoing ideas with inspiration taken primarily from the show’s window screens (which I’ve long wanted to turn into blackwork embroidery patterns) and other light/dark building features, then develop the patterns and forms through repetition. It’s producing surprisingly pleasing results.

1. A piece of immature graffiti amuses us immensely.

2. She makes an interesting mental leap that tells me that she understands – or at least is going in the right way towards it.

2b. The ducks are strangely unflustered by the noisy children and the dog dunking herself in the stream.

2c. Quietness.

3. The transformation of a pencil sketch as soon as the lines are inked.

1. We dance to the bemusement of the dog. Eventually she joins in by doing a few stretches and yawns.

1b. Lily runs back and forth with utter delight when R comes to visit her.

2. The courgette and cucumber seedlings always look so healthy and strong. Big fat baby leaves.

3. The evenings getting lighter – and they’ll get lighter still after the clocks change at the weekend.

1. We pass the leaflets back and forth, enjoying a bit.

2. The young pup runs everywhere at once – thankfully too distracted to bother our old dog.

3. Strange stretches out on my desk in the lamp light then Kaufman joins her. Tilda squeaks to be let into the room and bounces in with delight when the door opens.

4. Lily has been solidly asleep for the previous hour so it takes a few seconds for her tail to wake up but when it does, it wags at double speed. He nuzzles her and she tries to pretend that she’s not loving it.