1. I like soup.

1b. We watch the cat – the one I think that has been sneaking in to eat our cats’ food – exploring the elder tree and sniffing the sycamore stump.

2. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: black cats look awesome on bright geometric patterns.

3. Reading in French is enjoyable but slow going: everything is anchored around the content words (the verbs and nouns especially), tense and belonging only come after that, and only when the literal is understood do I apply my metaphor/idiom interpretor. I wonder if I read in English in the same way – just faster.

1. Tilda watches my hand as it stretches out and back in again.

2. The golden sun over the hills to the south.

3. The lucet cord grows and grows.

3b. I have to look very closely at the yarn to see whether it’s handspun or bought. I take this as a good sign.

1. All across Yorkshire & Lancashire, there is major flooding including up and down river from us. The worst happened in darkness and it’s only with the light of a bright day that we truly see the extent of it. The lower main road near our old house in Leeds (and one of our main routes into the city now) is a river, and the junction we used nearly every day back then is beyond waist deep. It’s terrible but on a sunny day, beautiful too: the blue sky and arches of the railway bridge mirrored on the ground.

1b. We become looky-loos closer to home on our usual dog walk – the river banks collapsed at the bottom of the hill, flooding gardens, playing fields, a pub and the road. It’s receded from the road by the afternoon but we – and the dozens of other people out taking pictures – are still largely surrounded by lakes of standing water on either side of the carriageway. The river is twice its regular width and carrying logs – and even an old fridge – as it rushes by beneath us.

2. I swap the dining room curtains from regular little curtain hooks to the long Ikea ones – they hold the tape so much straighter. This is strangely pleasing!

3. The mist makes sparkles in the torch light, draws lines in the cold blue security light across our neighbours’ deck.

1. Z distracts me from my ranting about government housing policy by asking me to play. We draw monsters, a dapper gent & a high heeled cowboy playing Consequences, a space scene and a robot – the latter inspiring a minute long robot dance party in the other room. Much better than complaining about planning law!

1b. Z tells me I’m good at drawing. This is one of the best compliments I’ve had all year.

2. A new waterfall runs down the hillside.

2b. We meet an overactive springer enjoying the mud who is a bit too much for Lily – the old lady lab who finally catches up with us is much more her speed.

3. The mat looks a lot neater and smarter than we’d imagined.

4. The moment when wool roving turns into felt.

1. My new favourite French word: “un brouhaha”.

2. Drops making circles in the puddle that straddles the road. They overlap like the circles I was drawing last week with M.

2b. The (dog we call the) Major is standing outside his garden gate, keeping an eye on the empty road. He eyes us as we approach but he recognises us too. As John crosses to him to say hello, his tail rises in a steady motion and it is only when it is vertical that it begins to wag. As always, his fur is softer than we think.

3. Lily’s tail as John dries her. Later, she smells like shampoo.

4. I nerd out directing my little virtual trains while John watches films upstairs. I upgrade all my mega-loops with relative efficiency. This makes me happy.

1. We both make each other laugh even more than usual with bad jokes and clever puns (or vice versa on the adjectives, it’s hard to judge).

2. Black muddy stripes on a dark blue towel.

3. Lily stays on the sofa when I go downstairs to the office. It’s unusual being on a different floor from her (when there is only the two of us in the house) but when I creep back upstairs to check on her, she’s fast asleep in a ball.

3b. I notice the blue of the new cushions perfectly matches the blue of Lily’s sofa. A stylish coincidence!