Monday, January 31

I spent the morning writing with all distractions switched off or hidden in another room. The building work next door has intensified and the hammering made me leave the workroom and move to another room for an hour. I could not tell if had found a handy excuse or whether I really did need to move.

My writing improved for an hour or so so I think I will assume that I made the right decision. On the other hand the sounds of the cars and dogs in the road outside made me move back eventually. I gave up writing and read instead.

On January 16 I posted a photograph of the banana tree in our garden, which had just began to produce bananas. This afternoon, having written my daily 1200 words, I wander into the garden to check the tree and it now looks like this. The bananas have started to become recognisable and three dimensional.

In another couple of weeks they will start to turn yellow and ripen. Unfortunately we will have gone back to Helsinki by then, so we will not actually see the finished result (nor indeed taste them).