Sunday, January 18

I have swept the stairs, which fill up with leaves, flowers and would-be coconuts every day. I open the gate to brush the detritus over the road and into the pile of branches and leaves on the other side.

As I do I notice two helmets and an abandoned shoe under the tree where one of the street dogs usually sits. Garbage seems to collect in themed piles. Once someone leaves a beer bottle somewhere then, mysteriously, more bottles will gather round it on a daily basis.

I find myself wondering if we will now watch a pile of helmets appear, one by one.