1. Finally, a day without snow. I sow beans in the greenhouse and pot on some cramped cucumbers and assorted squash. Next door’s R-kitten supervises my work.

2. The deer is back again and is confident enough to stay even when I go out onto the balcony with the cats. The cats watch it as it eats great green clumps of grass and dandelions.

3. R-kitten wrestles and plays with M-dog to distract us from our disheartening meeting.

3b. I work too late and need to eat quickly – I’m so glad that I have leftover curry ready to go.

3c. I sit on the window seat while I chat to my mum. Kaufman stares at me for stealing his usual spot but then realises he can join me.

3d. John and I chat for his entire journey home. We only hang up when he is through the door.

1. Mint in savoury food often takes me by surprise and is all the more refreshing for it.

2. I spend a couple of hours tidying my craft supply dumping ground the upstairs hallway. I fill a white shelving unit with colourful yarn, sort stray threads into their rainbow trays and tidy away all sorts of findings and ribbons into one neat tool box.

3. Huge heavy snowflakes.

1. The sunshine when I wake up makes me want to garden but before I get outside, the weather has transformed into hail and snow: it falls like snow, uniformly and softly, but when the pellets gather in the gutter and on the balcony, we can see it’s hail. Later, it manages to fall both vertically and almost horizontally at the same time.

2. A convenient parking space.

2b. We very much enjoy the panipuri – little paper thin puffs of chaat masala, tamarind sauce and pomegranate seeds, made even more flavourful and delicate when we pour on the fragrant water.

2c. My curry is a builder – each mouthful alone is nothing terribly special but a warm pepperiness builds in the back of my mouth.

2d. We laugh at how the decor makes it the “anti-Jinnah” – stark concrete and brick walls, compared to the deliberately OTT gaudiness of our more usual haunt. In the bathroom though, it strikes a better balance – clean & elegant tiling and fixtures enlivened with fun wallpaper.

3. Their sound and energy can’t help but utterly fill the small room. Everyone in there – on stage and in the crowd – is left sweaty and elated by the music.

3b. The violin player gives a shout out to his dad – we’d already guessed a familial connection for the grey haired man, in a waistcoat and tie, singing along to every lyric and dancing along like a man possessed.

3c. We take our post-gig gelato at the shop on the corner. It turns out there are now three dessert places on the strip of road between the cinema and the pub — if only they’d been there when the cinema was our local!

1. The gravy – a vegetarian George’s Marvellous Medicine effort – works out better than I’d expected.

2. We’re positively giddy before Game of Thrones starts.

3. A basket of warm, colourful socks.

1. The egg cups with the built in saucers are a pain to wash – the flowing water ski jumps around the curves to splash me – but cute to use.

2. Amongst doing other things, we spend the day watching episodes of Game of Thrones. We watch the very first episode – and ask “dead or crippled?” about all the characters – and the last two of season 5, in anticipation of season 6 starting today/tomorrow. The first episode – though still great for television – shows how far the series has developed in terms of cinematography and design.

3. I notice that in the last few weeks, my idiosyncratic crochet method has grown more regular – it’s only taken three years for me to start using my left index finger again after nearly chopping its tip off.

1. I wake up annoyingly early – my body clock is screwed (ie, it’s gone onto normal people’s time) – but John wakes up soon afterwards and he volunteers to go over to the supermarket to buy some yummy things for breakfast. The first bite of the croissant is heavenly.

2. After my shower, I stretch out on the bed and listen to a podcast about how a volcanic eruption had an immense global impact – on everything from the arts to political revolution. I end up with bed hair and a gush of fun facts to tell John.

3. The way a free wifi password filters through the group.