Around this time last year I sent out a list of everyday romances. It was the week before Valentine’s Day. I was heavily pregnant, two weeks away from releasing a book and swimming in a kind of overwhelm. Recently my therapist asked if I needed help organising things; was I the kind of person who kept lists and diaries? I laughed, and told him I was currently sat next to three of each, with colour-coding.

I like to make lists because they calm me down. When we have been trying to sort something and I am overwhelmed I make a list. Sometimes this stresses M out more. He will point out that I am writing things on a list that can just be done, they don’t need to be listed. Sometimes he points out that I have listed “make a list”. I tell him that is part of the process, that it’s nice to tick things off. His acceptance of this, in itself, is an everyday romance.

It transpires you like lists too. I received a lot of messages about this one, and so if romance is inherently generous (and it is), it felt only right for this month’s free Wednesday letter to be an updated version of this list. I’ve also opened up comments so you can share your own everyday romance below. As I wrote last year: We get told the same lies about romance - that it is heteronormative, tied to sex and commitment - but romance lies far more broadly than that. Some of my most heartbreaking love affairs have happened with people I’ve never slept with. I have been wooed, endlessly, by the girls I grew up with. Look around your life, and you will find romantic acts.

Here are some more of them:

• Quietly running the bath so it’ll be ready when someone needs it.

• Someone turning up with a handful of something - perhaps a bunch of those £1 daffs from the supermarket or some rosemary swiped from a neighbouring bush - that will linger long after they’ve gone home.

• Having the good sense and the sympathy to identify when someone is going through something unfixable, and saying it’s a raw deal, rather than trying to fix it

• Walking in through the door after a long day to the smell of something cooking.

• The feeling that accompanies a song coming on the radio that immediately takes you back to a certain dance floor, or a certain sunset, or a certain group of friends.

• Throwing away the dead flowers.

• Making someone laugh - really, truly, doing-a-little-bit-of-wee laugh.

• Replying to a text apologising for running late with a request for their drink order.

• Hand-written recipes.

• Hand-written anything, really.

• Post so beautiful you keep it on the mantlepiece long after the occasion has passed.

• Getting a snapshot from someone’s holiday not to gloat, or show off the view, but because they saw something small and beautiful that reminded them of you.

• Long emails sent at dawn.

• Polishing shoes, actually.

• The quiet satisfaction that comes after a day of pottering about getting things done.

• The unbridled freedom that comes with letting the hours unwind on a day when you should be pottering about getting things done, and you decide to go out and follow your nose, instead.

• Hand-me-downs. Especially when they are given the life they never quite had first time around.

• Buying an extra one (beignet, pudding, coffee) for someone else.

• Not shying away from the hard stuff.

• Telling people when they seem happy, and what a good thing that is.

• Telling people you love them, more than you think is necessary.

• Sometimes, just picking up the bill.

• Sometimes, just letting the bill be picked up.

• Spontaneous phone calls.

• Taking food over. This includes smuggling a box of Chicken McNuggets into the pub for the person who skipped dinner.

• Voicenotes that capture the very moment of where someone is, such as the sink filling up with water, or birds singing, or traffic rushing by.

• The eye contact - or maybe a smile - you share with a stranger knowing that is all it can and ever will be.

• Bookshops that seem vaguely improbable, because of every title that has been chosen to be there, and every title you will never actually read.

• Using the nice plates, or the good mug, because maybe this drizzly little Wednesday should be the “best” you’ve been saving them for.

• Listening, with all of yourself.

• Complimenting someone you barely know and seeing their face light up.

• Complimenting someone you know extremely well and seeing their face light up.

• Giving or receiving the properly priceless things: leftovers, saved seeds, cuttings from newspapers. Tucked away with care, and rummaged out of a bag, with an intent to nourish.

• Lending books with the understanding that they’ll never actually be returned.

• Returning books that nobody ever expected to see again.

• Someone doing the thinking for you, whether that’s booking a restaurant or meeting you at the bus stop.

• Conversations in the dead of night.

• Being there at daybreak.

• Letting them have a lie-in.