Tuesday, March 15

After breakfast I settled down at the computer to start banging out my daily words. I have hit the hardest part: the part where I make suggestions for what we might do to tackle the ills of the world. Describing them has proved much easier. I wrestled with the arguments and tried to wrangle them onto the page in the right order. Giddy up verbs, and so on.

After a couple of hours I decide to go for a walk and I head off around the block. As I turn into Riskutie and walk past the half completed houses, one of which now has people living in it (presumably people who expected to move in eighteen months ago and can no longer afford to wait), I look at the sides of the pavement and come across this little cloud of snow living in a patch of gravel.

I stop to talk to it and then move on before people see me. It answers quickly and then keeps quiet.