0. The dog and cats sprawl across us. When it comes time to get up, I try John’s pointing trick but Lily just looks at me: I’m not the one that gets a result with that gesture.

1. I spot another primrose that’s made its home in our garden. I’m not sure where they’ve come from but they’re welcome – I always meant to put some in.

2. Spinning samples – the pleasure of the texel after cotton, the linen after ramie

2b. A row of little skeins

2c. Kaufman under his little blanket all afternoon

3. It’s nearly a month since they moved in and it’s changed from a shell of a house to a home.

3b. Lily’s feet are especially white after her shower: they didn’t look dirty exactly before, just not shiny white.

3c. As we get out of the car, we hear a call. The ginger cat just over the garden fence wants to make itself known.

1. I’m amused to find a folder that contains my first swimming certificate (25m), my second swimming certificate (50m) and my degree certificate – and nothing else.

2. We sit in the dining room together, drinking tea, just before John has to rush out for his bus.

3. An experiment to liven up some veg (with mustard) works out well.

1. A ridiculous number of people stop to chat or to offer support as I measure the road.

2. The underglaze colours are just what colours I want: the yellow is satisfactorily mustardy and the blue-grey is a perfect balance of the too.

2b. The fading in the indigo dye on my sleeve.

3. Sometimes Lily’s head looks sleek like a seal.

1. Pate on toast for lunch. One bit of the bread is a little thick, a little doughy but the rest of the toast is perfectly crisp.

2. I picked up a bargainacious lamp in Southport on Saturday – a pretty duck egg blue angle poise, just what I’ve wanted for my desk for a while. I find a random bulb in the random bulb box and a pleasant soft glow lights up my workspace.

3. Polish sausage and seven veg (carrots, parsnips, onions, peppers, beans, peas and spinach) soup is delicious. The recipe was a bit of an experiment – a combination of guesswork and using up spare veg from the fridge – but it came out just as I wanted: packed with goodness and incredibly moreish.

1. I’m tired, groggy and wake up with a splitting headache. But at least I know I don’t have to do anything, all day. (Well, except for walk the dog but that was hours away at that point.)

2. We set out late for our walk but still manage to get a whole loop in, going right over the quarry to the end of Clara Drive and back again, before it’s dark. Hurrah for the lengthening daylight.

3. We stand side by side and make cakes in cups. We giggle throughout the making and cooking process.

1. The snowy moors.

2. It’s high tide on a weekend of the higher than normal tides: the sea comes right up to the fencing – very unusual for the Southport coast. Lily gets to spend a considerably higher portion of her beach time paddling in the shallows rather than sulking on the long walk back to the car.

2b. The immediate respite from the wind when we duck into the dunes’ hollow.

2c. The man laughs at Lily’s sulking.

3. We have just enough time to sneak into the museum and art gallery. There is a Lowry & Major exhibition – I went for the former but was more intrigued by the textures of the latter – and upstairs, we enjoy the Egyptian Faience jewellery – as blue as the pieces I made last month. With a laugh, I spy a four thousand year old press mould that is virtually identical to one I made.

4. We had listened to some music on the way there but on the way back, we just chat.