1. There is just enough sawdust in the bag for under the perches. And the old food sack tears into six perfectly sized pieces to line the nesting boxes.

2. Sharp tangs of onion amongst the salad at lunch.

3. I twist last week’s sea blue yarn and it curves around itself to form a beautiful skein. I stroke it for a moment.

4. A joke occurs to both of us at the same time and we sing it in chorus.

5. Lily’s anxiety melts away as she lies on her back between us. Her mouth hangs open in a happy smile. When Strange curls up next to her bum, John predicts she’ll get a “hoofing” from the dog but I know (and am proven right) that she’ll sleep unmolested: I know Lily might kick Kaufman “in her sleep” if she thinks he’s sitting to close but she’ll never disturb her little BFF.

5b. I hide her Bonio in an unusual spot. There is a lot of tail wagging and repeated investigation of my false leads before she figures it out.

0. I wake up to the sound of the beck gushing with rainfall – the bulk of the storm that fell as we slept.

1. We have the heating on for the first time in eight or nine months. The office radiator is dusty and we enjoy the comforting “smell of winter”.

2. The woods are misty and the setting sun is diffused. On the top path, I enjoy the light hitting the wet bark of an old oak tree (and our wet bark-er standing, well lit, to one side) while lower down, the rays are so golden that they’re breathtaking on their own.

3. I make paella for dinner but there is too much liquid in it for some reason so it’s more like a jambalaya. I call it “paellaya” and it’s delicious anyway.

3b. Three colours of peppers in a dish, speckled with pink prawns.

1. Lovely big D sees me through his cat flap as I’m spooning out his food. He runs over and alternates between eating and having hugs.

1b. Next door’s new cat is nowhere to be seen when I first arrive but when I softly ask, “little girl?”, she runs out from behind the sofa and is immediately granted the friendliest-cat-on-the-block badge of honour. An utter sweetie with an adorable white tipped tail.

1c. As usual when I return from feeding duties, I am thoroughly sniffed by every member of our team.

2. John’s tweaked his back so we have an enforced lazy day. We rewatch High Fidelity and marvel, yet again, at the absolutely perfect casting for Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso).

2b. My spinning isn’t perfectly even just yet but looking at the yarn stretched out on the niddy noddy, I’m proud how few slubs there are.

3. Lily stops for a poo but John’s bad back means he has to keep walking. When she is done, she races away down the path to catch up to him then, having asserted that he’s ok, she stops and waits for me.

4. Some of the mascarpone hasn’t been mixed in with the rest of the cheesecake filling and it’s colder and more slippery in my mouth (though not in a bad way).

1. Lily wallows in the red beck until her fur is stained orange. She later digs into the wider stream in much the same way: she doesn’t get to soak quite as much as she used to so relishes every opportunity that she gets.

2. On his request, I wrap up Z in a crochet blanket. He waddles around, completely covered, like a giggling woolly burrito.

3. The sky is very clear, the stars very bright – even in the densely lit city suburbs.

3b. The documentaries aren’t particularly highbrow but spark plenty of jokes and discussion.

1. I get up and dressed, ready for a day at the studio, then I realise that I’m not champing at the bit to go and that I’d rather have a quiet day at home – so that is what I do.

1b. I listen to the end of the (John Wyndham – The Kraken Wakes) audiobook as I spin the last of the sea blue roving. It feels fitting (and is very enjoyable).

1c. 25g divided, carded, spun and plyed in a single afternoon. (I should have let it rest between spinning and plying but the thought of completion was just too strong.)

2. Lily and her John nap together on the sofa. She snores more frequently than him but he wins on loudness.

3. We walk down the street together in the darkness; Lily pulls me onto the safety of the pavement.

1. The vet says Lily can have the painkillers long term: she started on them for a sore throat but they helped her sore joints more and they’ve made her a bouncing puppy dog again :)

2. We have kippers with poached eggs and potato cakes for lunch – yum!

2b. And curry for dinner – double yum!

3. I find the wool floating under the water to be slightly surreal but very beautiful: its halo of fluffiness floating free and shimmering with the slightest movement.

3b. I spun the wool quite tightly but it blooms as it dries, until it looks and feels much softer. I hate the smell of washing new wool but it’s worth it for these transformations.

4. I shift around the ceramics that have set up home in the dining room: moving my new favourites into prime position and putting bad older work away in a box. I find two sets of small wall plaques/tiles that now seem nicer than I originally thought and remember how much I like some of my simple coiled pieces from the start of the year.

5. Rather than leave it on the stairs for us to trip over for the next week, I take the laundered bedding up to the top room – and am rewarded with a Kaufman, stretched out on the bed. (I have a sneaking suspicion that whenever we think the cats are outside, they’re really just in the top room, having a break from us annoying humans and the bumbling dog.) I curl up around him and use him as a purring pillow.

5b. Later, Kaufman has relocated to our bed. When I look in on him, he’s in the deepest sleep I’ve ever seen with his tongue hanging out just a little bit.

5c. So the others don’t feel left out: Tilda going into winter mode and reclaiming the hammock after a summer elsewhere. And Strange is, as always, in strange mode, burrowing between my legs and under my laptop then popping up between me and my screen. She also blocks the frame when I try to take a photo of my sketchbook: I’m evidently just kidding myself if I think I want a photo of my ideas more than one of the cat.