Monday, March 25

I woke several times in the night but not for long; once because of the cat; once because of the sound of dripping water that morphed into the ticking of a clock Naa had left when she left the cupboard; and once because I did.

I woke for the final time at 7:03 and lay in bed planning the day, checking Todoist on my phone to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Irma had had a similar night of interrupted sleep and so we moved slowly and groggily through breakfast.

My travel card had expired the day before we left for India, and so I set up the HSL app before I left the house and then used it for the first time at the bus stop to buy myself a bus ticket. It worked smoothly; certainly an improvement on the old system using SMS messages.

Jutta arrived at Arcada at approximately the same time as me, and Maria and Monica looked up and shouted greetings.

I spent the morning working my way through a lengthy list of things to do today. By 12:12 I had them all done, and walked to the mall to buy fruit.

The team meeting took the first half of the afternoon. I explained what we had got up to on Kerala and why it might benefit Arcada. Everyone pretended to look convinced.

I left early for the cat, who has spent the last two weeks locked indoors and deserves to go out again. I still had some theses to read but I could do that more effectively at home than in an open office.

I got another ticket from the app and noticed something interesting. The ticket has an abstract moving graphic that spins slowly forever. I realised that it has a vital function. It prevents me making a screenshot of the ticket and sharing it with a friend. Simple but effective.

I then refilled my pass at an R-Kioski when I got to one. It will work from tomorrow until the start of the summer holidays.

As I leave the metro station a hailstorm of biblical proportions comes from nowhere. I look up to find the sky has darkened. I sit on the 93 bus and take a picture of hail so fierce you can actually see it on the photograph.

I will dutifully spend a couple of hours reading student theses on my iPad and making notes.

In the evening I will have a WhatsApp conversation with Naa that will make it clear that I should not expect another one any time soon.

Irma will arrive home from the big MakeSomeNoise event she, Kipa and Sami organised feeling (and looking) extremely happy. It all went as well as it possibly could.

By this time Sunshine had come back and he will lay happily on the mat while Irma tells me all about it.

We will both go to bed at what people used to call a sensible time and I at least will sleep deeply all night.