1. I survive our first canoeing session. We practise a capsize *just* before I accidentally capsize my boat. I don’t lose my glasses.

2. R is passing just as we arrive home and comes in for a chat. We further explore the culture and history of the papier mache age.

3. Noodles and salami.

1. I sleep heavily and solidly. I wake up feeling refreshed.

2. Still in “absent humans” mode, I don’t see either Strange or Tilda all morning. Mid-afternoon, I spot Strange heading up towards the balcony and go into the garden to see her. We have a cuddle in the sunshine until I’m covered in white and ginger fur.

2b. After three short years, Strange has decided that she likes Paul. She sits on his knee and show him her belly.

3. Some of the chapattis are uneven with fat doughy edges. Yum.

1. The dogs and cats all come to the door to say goodbye.

2. The Borders, Northumberland through Kielder Forest & beyond, County Durham then Yorkshire — it’s all very beautiful and, after Durham, looks its best in the bright sunshine.

2b. All the people in canoes & kayaks on the river, waiting for the start of a race. We watch with interest.

2c. The dog wants the pasty but the dog is not allowed the pasty. The dog forgets this and a second later asks for the pasty again.

2d. Google maps told us that Durham was exactly the halfway point on our journey – 1hr 44 minutes from our B&B, and 1hr 44 minutes from our home. When we get back into the car after our tea & wee break, we see it’s exactly 1hr 44 minutes since we arrived at the car park.

3. A lovely evening: showers in our own shower & a transit into pyjamas, a light supper which we make together, cats to cuddle, popcorn to eat and a new episode of Game of Thrones to watch cuddled up together on the sofa. Marvellous.

1. The chickens are pottering about just a few metres away from where we’re having our breakfast so it’s no surprise that the yolks are a rich orange.

2. We’d hoped to have a lazy day but our hosts are going out so we have to go out too. We head into Jedburgh: last year, it was sleeting while we were there and we found it unimpressive (aside from a good charity shop yarn score), but this time, in better weather, we go inside the ruined abbey. It’s interesting to hear how the building was used in its heyday – how it grew and shrunk over time, and how the local lords and common people kept using it after it had begun to decay.

2b. We start our audio commentaries like we’re synchronizing watches for a military invasion.

2c. We follow around a sweet cocker spaniel.

2d. The Castle Jail is not quite as interesting – we’re lagging and distracted – but every now and then, we catch ourselves and imagine what it must have been in those cells for months or years at a time. (It’s the placing of a simple bed – that shrinks the floor size – and a cold breeze through the window that makes it feel real to us.)

2e. Bonc the dog repeatedly visits our table in the pub to accept strokes and ask to share our crisps.

3. The pub we choose for dinner is not fine dining like it was a year ago – just standard pub fare – but it’s, you know, fine all the same. There is a strong dash of five spice on the ribs and the burger is peppery, topped with a strong cheese.

3b. A ridiculous amount of crows flies towards a tree that is already laden down with a heavy murder.

3c. We take the prettier route home and are intrigued by (the wonderfully named) Fatlips Castle high on the hillside above the road.

1. The whole way to the motorway is beautiful – rolling fresh greens fields decorated with gamboling lambs and stretching out to snow topped hills and mountains in the distance. The Tour De Yorkshire followed this path (in reverse) yesterday and so all the villages are still decked out colourful bunting and bike sculptures. Yorkshire flags – white roses on turquoise – still flutter en masse and in some places they make it look like some sort of medieval (or Westerosian) tourney.

1b. We take the wrong exit at the roundabout and end up diverting through Kendal to get back to the motorway – a long but pretty route. The road finally brings us out next to the north-bound lanes – we drive parallel to the M6 for a mile or so, tanalisingly close but 50m higher up.

1c. Everyone in the cafeteria makes the same face as they watch the teeny-tiny baby ducks. We also marvel at the well behaved springer who doesn’t run into the water and disrupt everything.

1d. We have to select a new album just as we’re about to cross the Scottish border: of course it has to be Admiral Fallow. After the tight bend in Canonbie, the roads become pleasantly familiar.

2. The B&B is lovely but intense – very much just rooms in someone’s home. The owners are welcoming, friendly and we share a lot interests but still, we feel like we’re intruding. The cats give me something to focus on though – one of them jumps on my knee and gazes up at me with utter adoration for a time in the afternoon, and when we return from dinner, the other stretches out on my lap for belly tickles. They’re almost identical former farm cats with the bestest colouring: black with a white spot on their chests.

2b. The Italian restaurant is better than we’d hoped. I have pumpkin flowers and a pizza topped with very good salami & pancetta (and a hint of rosemary), while John follows his stuffed pepper with parmagiana over chicken. He is disappointed that it’s good value for money – if it had been poor value, we’d have had room for dessert.

2c. Sunset over miles of border hills as we drive back to the B&B.

3. Even with the headlights in the holding car park and our as-yet unaccustomed eyes, we can still see thousands of stars.

3b. When I lean into the eyepiece to look at a galaxy, a shooting star streaks across the lens.

3c. They use laser pointers to show which objects they mean. The columns of light stretching upwards make us woo almost as much as the objects themselves. We joke about beings in another observatory somewhere else being blinded by them while they watch us.

3d. The crispness of Saturn’s rings through the telescope make it look artificial. A white paper cutout against the black.

3e. I’ve been worried about it all week but when he puts his hand on my arm and says ‘hello you’, I know it’s going to be ok. We don’t have long to chat, five minutes maybe, certainly not enough to cover the missing 18 years, but I’m so glad to have seen him again, and to see that he’s happy too. As I say to him, there are bad times from Southport that I would like to leave in the past but there were good times, good people, I’ve lost by mistake and it’s always such a joy to reconnect. I’m so grateful that a crazy coincidence – and our mutual space nerdiness – have brought us back together.

1. An afternoon of interesting podcasts.

1b. To note how brilliantly the lemon juice has lifted the rust stain off the kitchen counter.

2. We pop around to John’s mum and dad’s for a cup of tea but stay for dinner. Z and I play with megablocks while John reads to little JJ, then later, when she’s gone to bed, John, Z and I build the tallest block tower we can manage, using all the blocks and careful balance.

2b. Both Z and John’s dad react the same to the 3D videos.

3. It’s a novelty for us to be packing for a B&B instead of a cottage – I don’t have to think about towels or blankets or condiments.