1. The kitschy picture has been sat on my desk for two years? three? but when I hang it on the spare nail in the coal hole, it suddenly makes the space feel more like a room.

2. The body of the soup isn’t as flavourful as normal for some reason – a little dollop of sauce sparks it up.

2b. I arrange the deep red steak in a ring around the edge of the bowl. This meal, more than any other I make, is like an elaborate tea ceremony: a simple meal really but everything is deeply coloured, sliced thinly and presented carefully.

3. Colourful heels sticking out of the shoe rack.

1. We get barked at from a car: two dogs sticking their heads out of a back window, demanding attention.

2. A cat crawls inside the log hauling bag on the floor and another watches her disappear. I predict, correctly, that before the evening is through this will become a multi cat game of bat and chase.

2b. Lily knows that her Bonio is wrapped up in one of the mini-blankets (it often is) and pulls one off the cat hammock to check – nope, not that one. She then stands on the sofa to reach the blankets on the top section – one of the blankets that Strange is sat on. Strange lets her pull it a little bit then raise a (claw-retracted) paw as a sign to leave her blankie alone, dogdammit. Lily obeys and Strange curls back into the wool to sleep.

3. A new pattern is a little fiddly at first but after the second row, I find its rhythm. The blanket grows quickly and the texture is interesting without being outlandish.

1. I pick up Kaufman and carry him outside to show him that the chicken run is open. He’s so warm and furry that it feels cruel to put him down on the cold wet ground. I cuddle him until he insists on exploring.

2. Lily goes on her first proper walk in days – just a short loop through the woods but her tail wags throughout.

3. The only good thing about Christmas: more places sell pigs in blankets. Still, I wasn’t expecting the Moody Cow to have them as a starter: honey roasted, they’re sweet, salty, and a satisfactory level of sticky.

3b. Continuing her recovery, Lily runs around like a (albeit wobbly) little puppy when we get home. Her back feet bounce in unison from side to side as she chases her bone.

1. Drips balance on the end of thin branches. Drops coat the conifer fronds. Mist hangs heavy and so low that the horses’ legs are blurred.

2. I accidentally burn some butter with garlic. I have to throw it away – it’ll ruin the soup – but it smells great.

2b. The soup fits perfectly into three tubs.

3. Leftovers wrapped in tin foil.

Lily is having another wobble so we have a quiet day.

1. I relearn a skill from two decades ago: knots in stripes and chevrons.

2. Thick pasta with moreish chunks of salami.

3. She wobbles around and her legs fail from time to time but her tail still wags the whole time she’s looking for her treat.

1. It’s raining ridiculously hard. I navigate us down to Pizza Pieces through various shops and arcades but on the way back up, with our hot donuts and drinks rapidly going cold, we take the most direct route. We have to laugh at how drenched we end up.

1b. I try to clean the water from my glasses but none of my outer garments – my tunic, my scarf – are dry enough: they just spread the water around. I laugh at the situation and the woman at the opticians’ takes them from me without any comment. She returns them sparklingly clean.

2. The pencils give a pleasingly bright and solid shade.

3. Our friends say they’ll be around for dinner at 8, rather than 7:30, so suddenly we have time for a cup of tea.