Saturday, March 21

I might have got it wrong yesterday. I might have seen snow not frost.

I woke this morning at 5:30 and I could see big flakes of snow dropping in a thick stream. When I woke up properly a couple of hours later the ground had a thick covering and the snow had turned into rapid-fire hail.

When the hail stopped I went for a walk. For some reason I went off the path and up a hill into a “secret clearing” where Auo and I went a few times. I have not walked up here for literally years, and she seems remarkably close when I look round the giant stones which (if you squint your eyes and stretch a point) form a circle.

Since we approached the stones up a narrow but visible path I doubted the level of secrecy actually involved, but Auo insisted that none of her friends knew about it, which made it secret for her; and certainly neither Irma nor Naa ever knew where to find it, if they even suspected its existence.

I stand and think about this for ten minutes and then leave the circle silently and re-enter present time.