1. The soup has settled into a single solid blob: stirring turns it first into clumps, then into lumps, then finally into silky smooth.

1b. (It’s Double Soup [Wednes]day, evidently.) Good old foolproof hot and sour soup. My head finally clears for the first time all day.

2. The density of the jelly.

3. A strange cat (not Strange-cat) sneaks into the kitchen. On its way out again, it pauses at the kitchen doorway and I say hello – it looks a little like, but isn’t, our neighbour’s tuxedo. Strange-cat and Lily-dog only stir when at the sound of the cat flap at it exits.

1. I always put them off but actually, on the sly, I quite like the process of compiling my company accounts.

2. I finally dig out some photos that I’ve been thinking about for a week. As often happens, I’d polarized them – thinking the worst of some bits and the best of others – and it’s quite refreshing to bring my mental images back to reality.

3. We complain about having to make up the bed but both enjoy slipping into the smooth, cool sheets. A few minutes later, Tilda settles in between us and we remark how beautiful she looks against the colours.

1. I tidy away a little pile of papers and find all the things I thought I’d lost.

2. The birds cling to the trees while the clouds skate across the sky.

3. The first attempt at mash was a little flavourless without cumin seeds, the second time I browned the butter a little too much, but the third attempt today is just right.

1. The spray makes the cars look like they’re floating on clouds.

2. It’s low tide so it’s a long, long walk out to the sea. The kite surfers, the scurrying pack of little dogs and the pretty shifting sands keep us entertained on the journey. On the way back, we come across a plastic ball (a lost float from a net presumably) and I tap it towards John, expecting us to kick it back and forth – it doesn’t reach him though, it gets caught in a furrow and rolls away from us. With the help from the wind, it keeps rolling – and rolling, and rolling. We watch it, laughing, for a couple of minutes as it becomes a little speck moving along the sand, seemingly ignoring the laws of physics. I bet it’s in Blackpool by now.

2b. I’d been wanting a roast dinner for a while and Mum provides a feast.

3. We chase Orion all the way home (except for over Saddleworth when the fog turns the world into just distant, soft red glows).

1. I’m running late but the traffic lights are on my side: as soon as I reach the crossroads, the lights change so that I can walk straight across.

2. The strip of light above the hills.

3. I dither about whether or not to get daal as a side dish (since we’d had lentils for dinner the night before) but I’m glad when I decide to go for it: it’s both perfectly cooked and perfectly spiced.

1. It’s not been windy so the leaves stay where they have fallen: patches of yellow on a carpet of russet red.

2. The laundry looks like it’s been ironed (but is not).

3. Kaufman sleeps on my desk with his head resting in my upturned hand (I’d been tickling his ear and he’d gone to sleep before I could move). When he dreams, I can feel every whisker twitch.

3b. The cats react to the fireworks in the opposite way than I would have predicted – Strange, usually the bravest (or at least gobbiest) of them hides under the dining table, with Kaufman nearby ready to bolt downstairs, while Tilda, the usual scaredy cat, doesn’t move from her usual spot on the armchair. (Admittedly Strange was outside when the bangs started and Kaufman was in the window looking out towards the offending house over the valley so they had it worse.) Later, Strange becomes almost cocky in her demanding of attention, as if to downplay her earlier fear: “scared? Nah, don’t be daft, I wasn’t scared, I was guarding the under table space in case the other cats needed it.”