1. Noise from the chickens wakes us before 8. It’s not too loud (quieter than the birdsong but more persistent like the sound of distant Canadian geese) but we’ve been listening for it all night. We go down together to let them out.

1b. I sit and wait for the chickens to emerge from their pop hole and explore the run for the first time. It’s a long but peaceful wait. A pair of Great Tits take an interest in the gentle clucking coming from within the coop. The sun dapples the wood and makes the beck shine like diamonds. Eventually they all come down the ramp and after taking some photos, I leave them to their exploration. On the way out, I have an overly optimistic look in the nest box but it turns out I wasn’t being too hopeful – our first egg is waiting.

2. We’re making pleasant, polite small talk when A spots the couple on the lawn outside – from the way they’re sat, it’s not obvious but subtly suggestive that “couple” is the right word. Within seconds, the small talk gives way to an excited flood of gossip.

3. The kids in the advanced group seem incapable of doing any improvisations at the moment without them quickly getting very very wrong. Last week saw a scene around copiously scratching teenagers with genital herpes and this evening, they create a soap opera set in an old people’s home with the most sexually energetic elderly people ever, Yorkshire Tea flavoured condoms and the line “I’ve got sexual energy running through all my varicose veins”. We’re all crying with laughter during the rehearsals but it doesn’t seem to go over as well as we’d hoped when they perform it for the others. The journey – creating the characters, the setting, the blocking – is more important than the destination, and the journey was a hoot.