Sunday, November 16

This morning, before breakfast, I ironed all the sheets and duvet covers that have been waiting around since last Sunday. Irma opened the outside door and Sunshine was sitting there eating a full-grown squirrel that it had apparently killed and dragged home. It must be very fast sometimes, when nobody is looking, to manage to do this.

It came in while I was ironing and when I looked it was sitting there, licking its lips.

Now I am outside in the road looking to see if anything needs sweeping. It doesn’t. Most of the leaves have already fallen and been swept away. There is a supermarket trolley at the end of the road, for some reason. People are walking past it without seeming to notice. People are odd.

Irma will work most of the day. She will be organising a huge public meeting in which the Somalian community will try to find ways of working with the police and other public services to prevent naive teenagers from being duped into going to Syria to fight. It is an international event with an iman from Denmark among other speakers.

Naa will spend the afternoon in bed with her flu, reading, and I will leave my iPad in my bag and read printed books. Irma made a pasta bake before she left and I will heat it at 16:30 because Naa will declare that she is starving. We will both eat a lot of it. It is spicy and delicious.

Irma will arrive home at about 21:30, just in time for us all to say goodnight to each other. The event went well and she will be very pleased.

I will be pleased too.