Walknotes

  • 9 – 13 February 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 7:24am

    The Silent Wood is back to its old tricks. Something about it is wrong again. Even as I walk towards it, it seems to get more distant, like looking at the horizon through the wrong end of a telescope.

    There used to be a step up just to get into it: a concrete block to climb between the field and the wood. But that’s gone now and a short muddy slope has replaced it. Instead of choosing to step in, it’s more like being pulled.

    Inside it’s quiet of course, but nothing feels quite right. I follow the path around the bottom edge then decide to quit—to break out through the trees and back into the field; can’t do that. There’s a big ditch I’d not noticed before and it’s filled with debris and fallen branches. No way through. Instead I turn around and go back the way I came, but faster. 

    In the field the horses have churned the earth to peaks and waterlogged troughs. They watch idly while I work my way through. Artificial flowers feign a loud welcome in the graveyard while reedy purple crocus sit resentfully at the edges. Snowdrops gather around a bug hotel and under the ground roots shift and stretch. Over time headstones have toppled here, the arms of crosses broken. Now the flat grave markers are slowly rising. 

    Wednesday

    Sunrise: 7:20am

    An unremarkable sunrise but somewhere there’s news. The (regular) wood is humming with birdsong and chatter. The mud is thick still, and wet. In the deepest puddles it sucks at your boots, slaps and farts when you pull yourself free.

    In the fields the cows turn to look as I pass. Two magpies stroll unconcerned at their feet.

    When I get home I remember to upend my boot and tip out a stone at last. It’s been a few weeks. Tipping it out feels like a metaphor, but I’m not sure for what.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 7:19am

    “The sun’s coming up, Mum!”

    A little kid shouts excitedly to his mum, who is focussed on heaving the buggy, with him inside it, onto the train. “It’s a sunset!”

    “A sunrise.”

    As they board, they face the morning sun which has just reached the horizon. It’s been wet for days but this morning there’s a real sunrise, with sunshine you can see colouring white walls orange and bouncing off windows. Closer into town it’s blinding. Concrete tower blocks stand crisp against an ash grey sky and their windows glitter.

    It was almost daylight when I left the house – a first for the work commute this year. On Gracechurch Street the branches on three of the ailing trees have catkins which sway gently with the traffic. Proof of life. 

    I got the bus from Primrose Street and when I checked the sculpture, I noticed the hidden umbrella was finally gone. 

    At lunchtime the distant sky over the city was a deep blue-grey. Bright white clouds drifted in the foreground and for a moment it was breathtaking. 

    Friday

    Sunrise: 7:17am

    Almost daylight at Crystal Palace station and the wrens are in full throat. Their song is loud enough to drown out the magpies’ rattles until the train arrives and they fall silent. But magpies cannot be deterred, and instead get louder and more furious. “See it, say it, sorted” the train intones – perhaps they are, seeing and saying it at least. Inside the train the automatic doors close and all you can hear is an electric hum.

    Other things:

    Olympic commentary of the snowboarders:

    “She’s a human cider wheel. Crushing her opposition”
    “…If her opposition were apples”.
    “Yeah.”

    —
    I’m not sure which is more extraordinary: the memories we lose; the memories we keep; the memories we make up to fill in the gaps. 

    —

    The purple iris are out. I took no notes on Tuesday. What happened on Tuesday? These weeks. Honestly. Apologies all round.

    , , , , , , ,

  • 2 – 6 February 2026

    Rain stops play.

    Last night I thought “what if I died without writing a book?”. In the dead of night this felt tragic. Imagine it! Jesus wept there are so many books, as if the world needs another without a plot or a planned end. 

    Last week SW said, “I do reckon anyone can write a book—no, honestly! Might not be any good but—what? Don’t you reckon?” She cocked her head, the question dragging at her eyebrows. I said no, I don’t think so. Or not a long one anyway. 

    Everywhere you look people want to be writers. There’s social media for writers, competitions for writers, anthologies for first timers, ads for retreats, workshops. And what? Suddenly you’re watching an Instagram reel of an American you don’t know telling you why they decided to continue living in China after their divorce. Who cares? We can’t all be writers, but damn are we primed for stories. There’s a lot of ways to tell ‘em.

    The weather is terrible and work is busy. On Thursday I watched a false dawn at London Bridge as a giant billboard flooded the early morning streets with electric light. When the adverts changed, the colour switched from unnatural white to unnatural green, which flared against the red of the traffic lights. Across the river the tall city buildings were lost to the rain and the fog.

    On Wednesday I waited for a train at Euston Station while the Inspector Sands announcement played on repeat. “Would Inspector Sands please go to the control room.” Three short blasts of a horn. Rhythmic, controlled. “Would Inspector Sands…” Hypnotic. If someone told me it was a way of activating unwitting agents of evil, I’d almost believe them. Perhaps some among us left changed. 

    It’s rained all week and I’ve had meetings in other towns. These are not the right conditions for walking. But on Tuesday I escaped to the big park in the early twilight. The app said it would rain in an hour but it was already in the air when I left home and I pulled my hood against it and tried not to slip in the thick mud. 

    If I don’t walk, it’s hard to write notes. (I guess the clue is in the name.) But there’s always walking, really. The city or the wood, the park or the schlep to the station. What do you see? Gotta be something. Today when I walk down the hill from Crystal Palace a hard-looking man is walking in my direction. On the end of a loose lead is a small dog – a chihuahua. It’s dressed in an ill-fitting pink argyle jumper, eyes narrowed against the rain.

    Other things

    • Last week I met a friend for dinner. I was telling a story that made me laugh so hard I started crying. We had to change the subject. The last time that happened I was in Mexico.
    • On a packed train last week I was close enough to read the screen on someone’s phone. He was writing a to-do list which included writing a ‘state of the world report’. I hope for his sake that was just a way of saying ‘project report’, otherwise I assume he’s still writing now.
    • Last Sunday was Imbolc; “Imbolc falls about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox”… “Imbolc was believed to be when the Cailleach—the divine hag of Gaelic tradition—gathers her firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she wishes to make the winter last a good while longer, she will make sure the weather on Imbolc is bright and sunny so that she can gather plenty of firewood. Therefore, people would be relieved if Imbolc is a day of foul weather, as it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter is almost over.” Here’s hoping, Cailleach.
    • Cailleach has some great legends associated with her. “The Cailleach displays several traits befitting the personification of winter: she herds deer, she fights spring, and her staff freezes the ground.” – She fights spring. Of all the seasons to pick a fight with.

    , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 9 – 22 January 2026

    Monday

    Sunrise: 7:54am

    On the walk to the wood I feel my fingers smart as I press the soft pad of a fresh blister. Yesterday I cut back a large shrub with a handsaw and clippers. The magazine said late winter is the best time to cut it back—but I was in a T-shirt and hoodie, and January felt like spring and the buds were already grown. It felt more like butchery than gardening. A robin settled in to watch, horror in its eyes and gossip in its beak. And here we are on the way to the wood and all the birds are chattering.

    On the path of perma-mud I see the elf in boy’s clothing, but even he is sinking into the mud today. The edges of the path are heaped with ivy, stripped from trees or fallen. The ivy has toppled trunks and dragged down branches, is pulling down the fences. Perhaps it’s strong enough to tether a changeling, force an exchange, embrace a real boy.

    Tuesday 

    Sunrise: 7:53am

    I pack my Kindle into my backpack and plunge my fists into my pockets as I wait for the train to pull in. The stranger next to me is sleeping, head resting on the glass. It’s the last stop, and while I wonder if I should wake her, she wakes.

    “Good timing.”
    “Ah, thank you.”
    “And you made it to the end of the day.”
    “I’m so tired.”
    “Apparently tomorrow isn’t even Friday.”
    “I know. Today isn’t even Wednesday. It’s not even the middle of the week.”

    We give each other sympathetic smiles. 
    “But it is the end of the day.”

    Wednesday

    Sunrise: 7:52am

    Endless rain.
    Unexpectedly well-timed journey to north London. Extraordinary.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 7:51am

    As we approached the train I said: “Turns out my favourite seat is everyone else’s favourite seat too. These days there’s always someone in it.” And he said, “You have a favourite seat on the train?” 

    I do, and today someone is in it.

    A few weeks ago, I heard two new (I assume) friends talking on the way home:

    “You don’t do YouTube?! What do you do when you’re on the train?”
    “Well I—“
    “I mean, physically. How do you sit?!”
    “Err, well, like this?” And she gestured to the way she was sitting. 

    I still wonder what answer he was expecting. 

    Seems that other people’s train habits are a mystery.

    As I head through London Bridge station I think about music improv, whether I’ll get the bus or walk to the office and a document I need to write, which I believe will have a high effort/ignore ratio once complete. Imperial March (Star Wars) plays loudly in my head, with a focus on the bullet-style beats that underpin part of the tune. 

    Sixteenth in the queue but the bus is full and I don’t have the patience, so I march on through the drizzle. Later I stop at the Happy Cafe for tea and a sarnie, mainly to get lost in Neal Stephenson’s Reamde and other people’s problems for 10 minutes. This must be one of the oldest books on my Kindle. It’s good so far, I don’t know why I didn’t read it before. 

    Other things

    • Reading reviews on Goodreads for Reamde:
      “This book is great, but it appears #TeamStephenson was expecting the opening of the Ark of the fucking Covenant.”
      10/10 for the book review.
    • Matthew, who made the Sunlight Optimism Counter made the huge mistake of sharing a link to this game, where all you need to do is match things together in pairs and then in larger groups. I’ve been playing it for hours, if it can be called ‘playing’. I’m not sure at what point it started to feel like I was working for Lumon, but it was pretty early on. It’s either your thing or absolutely not your thing. Either way, don’t @ me, as they used to say. If you want to play something similar, but much smaller, try HodgePodge. A friend made it recently.
    • Talking of things in pairs, Log in VS Sign in is interesting. Are these rules we’re all sticking to? You can @ me if you like. (Where ‘@’ is a very loose term for emailing me or filling out a form.)
    • I keep coming across articles that say blogging is coming back to life (just google it, there’s loads). And also, the odd site that is trying to facilitate that, like this (via Jeremy).
    • Oops. It’s 2026 – published this with the wrong title and updated it. Now the url is wrong too.
    , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 12 – 16 January 2026

    After last week’s post, Matthew sent me a link to The Sunlight Optimism Counter. I love it (he built it). 6am sunrise in March! 5am in May. It hardly seems possible.

    On Monday the sunrise was 8:01am. Today (Friday) it was 7:57am. Depending on where you are, the days don’t suddenly get longer after the winter solstice. Or they do, but it’s barely noticeable; a second or two at best. But the tide has finally turned – predictions that seemed unlikely last weekend suddenly seem possible now.

    Monday

    Sunrise: 8:01am

    It’s a smaller moon behind the clouds this morning. It looks chastised, almost beaten. Another storm last night: high winds, heavy rain. Weather that demands an adjective for every noun. 

    I take my time leaving the house. Listen to the sound of wet tyres on tarmac and wonder if it’s worth it; it’s too dark to walk to the wood and I feel uneasy. I woke at 3, 4 and 6am, and the disquiet of broken dreams has seeped into the morning. 

    Wednesday 

    Sunrise: 7:59am
    9°C yesterday, 0°C today

    The moon is a purposeful crescent. Crisp. I feel the freezing mist before I see it. Much like trouble, it can be hard to see a low mist when you’re in the heart of it.

    As I round the corner, I make out the shape of someone I know. Wrapped in a thick coat, hood up, she’s walking Cookie, her great chunk of a dog. Cookie is a rescue dog with the face of a killer – but one kind word and a pat on the head and she’s 60% wagging tail, 40% eyes closed basking in the sheer joy of it all. I talk with her owner for a while and by the time I continue to the wood, the light has shifted.

    The wood is muddy, deep puddles and the occasional layer of thin ice. Ahead, a curious robin flits from tree to tree as I walk. In the open space of the fields the mist is thicker, heavy clouds fallen down to earth. I catch the moment the sun breaks the horizon – and on the way back, watch as it spotlights the trees and creates sharp shadows.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 7:58am

    Two men stare at their phones. Another sits head back, eyes closed, the cable of his wired headphones snaking across his jacket. It’s dark outside and wet. Pavements shine with it. 

    I’m early to meet friends before work so I take a walk to the river. In Borough Market they’re setting up stalls while a man in hi-vis sweeps up last night’s broken glass. Behind me a man drags a suitcase which rattles across the cobbles. The streets are full of runners – where are they all from? They jog past in ones and twos, but the further I go the more there are, packs of them now. One stops to prop a phone against a lamppost, runs back and then runs forward, TikTok in the making.

    Across the river the tallest city buildings are lost to the fog. Red lights smudge, staining the sky purple.

    Other things

    On Monday I listened to a discussion about Agatha Christie on the radio. They talked about the reasons why she’s still so popular, and Dr Jamie Bernthal-Hooker suggested it’s the language she uses:

    “She doesn’t patronise readers, but her language is very easy to understand. So even now, over 100 years on, we can still pick up one of her books and read it, and recognise that it’s kind of how people talk. We’re not lost in the words, which we are with a lot of older books.”

    Later, he said:

    “I would describe her as an accessible stylist… it’s led to her being underestimated; people see accessible writing as simplistic writing.”

    I read a book review recently on Goodreads (which I can’t find now). The reviewer said how disappointed she was in a particular book. To paraphrase, It won a Pulitzer but the language was too easy to read… She was disappointed in the way it was written, because it just didn’t feel ‘literary’ enough. Complex writing must be better writing, by default.

    I spend 50% of my time at work dealing with this. To quote Sarah Richards, “accessible writing is not dumbing down, it’s opening up”.

    Also:

    , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 3 – 9 January 2026

    Saturday

    Sunrise, 8:04am

    God, it’s the best day for walking! On the way back to the wood the setting sun hits the trees, colouring trunks and bare branches bronze. On the ground a mist is gathering. The sun sets in nine minutes and I have all the time in the world. 

    As I head back into the wood the cold mist climbs my legs. A thin layer of snow highlights the open space left by December’s fallen trees. New growth is coming.

    As is an occasional tradition, I made a little pilgrimage: through the wood and across the fields, down the valley and up the other side to where the old man’s beard grows and catches the setting sun.

    • 2023
    • 2025

    I should’ve posted a photo in 2024. Shame.

    Sunday

    Sunrise, 8:04am

    The moonlight is pooling on the floor. This moon is incredible; on the way home yesterday, just past 4pm, I took a detour to get a better look. It was pale gold, massive on the horizon. 

    Monday

    Sunrise, 8:04am

    It’s too early for the wood and too early for the earthworks. Pitch black. Clouds cross the moon like a ghost story in waiting. I walk from the small, half-lit park to the large unlit one and start a forced march, assuming that’s safer. There is, I think, a dog with a red light on its collar and a person who barely registers as a shape in the dark. 

    When it gets light I walk up to the wood. Contrails are pink now. Pheasants shriek and… woodpeckers! The woodpeckers are here.

    Tuesday 

    Sunrise: 8:03am

    Finally, the days are getting longer. Sunrise has been 8:04am since the winter solstice. Today it’s one minute earlier. So it begins.

    From the right side of the train you can see the pink day as it dawns. From the left side you can see the blue-black night as it fades.

    People stop at London Bridge to snap the sun rising over the Thames. It’s a fabulous morning. Gracechurch is in shadow as always, just the tips of buildings brushed by the sun, and heat tumbling from rooftop vents in dense candy-floss clouds.

    Wednesday 

    Sunrise: 8:03

    I walked to the earth works and back through the wood. But this is the first time I’ve smelled bacon from the caff. What if I just got a bacon sarnie and skipped the walk? 

    The path was icy: white ice, black ice. Treacherous.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise, 8:03am

    From the train window the world fades from black to grey and city lights shine through the mizzle. No pink sunrise today – a storm is coming. On the walkway from the station, a row of unhoused people sit on damp cardboard and glow blue. The huge digital billboard opposite encourages them to take a holiday. They could feel as fresh as the woman in red, swimming in the bluest of waters, if only they’d give it a try. 

    Walking across London Bridge I catch the exact moment the lights on Tower Bridge switch off. A proud-looking man wheels a baby in a pram through the flow of commuters and stops to make sure it’s properly tucked in. He bows and kisses the baby gently on the forehead.

    I pass a woman talking on a phone. “Call me” she says, “if you’re worried about anything at all. And send me photos! But not too many of men’s bums. Well. A few.”

    The office is 15.5°C when I arrive. An hour later it’s 16.5°C. We watch the thermostat and wait. By the end of the day it’s 20°C and a few people have finally taken off their coats and hats.

    Other things

    • The global news is both terrible, and unbelievable
    • In the UK thousands of people are without power due to the storm, and St Michaels Mount has lost most of its trees
    • The camellias are out in the house by the wood and bulbs are still coming up. More snowdrops have come out.
    • I made a couple of casual new year’s resolutions: take a lunch break and don’t get stressed about work. Glad that around here, new year doesn’t start till 12th January (I have just decided).

    , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 27 December 2025

    Radio edit this week.

    If you like books, these are good places for books in the UK.

    Slightly Foxed, beautifully produced books – reprints of old novels or biographies which are worth the reprinting. 

    Rough Trade Books – from the Rough Trade records people, this is an interesting independent publisher. Plus Craig Oldham is the creative director there so everything is well designed. I spoke at a conference with him about 10 millions years ago: he was great and swore like a fucking trooper. 

    Other things I’ve enjoyed this year which are unrelated to the above and each other:

    • Timothy Monger’s weeknotes. He’s a musician based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. 
    • James Reeves’ writing (previously Atlas Minor, found via Phil a few years ago)
    • Breakfast with Russell and Matt – honestly meeting friends for breakfast is a really good way to start a work day. It’s a shame they’re closing my office in the spring, because it’s probably going to kill that dead. 
    • Singing with others – I went on two singing retreats for the first time. Such a joy.
    • Planting seeds I was given by a friend and watching them grow and flower. Seeds are a good gift.
    • Going to see more exhibitions – getting membership is actually great. You can go and see things even if you’re not sure that you’ll like them because there’s no extra cost. As a result, Ed Atkins and Emily Kim Kngwarray were two favourites which I’d never have gone to otherwise. There is a downside: it does make you stick to specific galleries. I’m trying to stop that.

    Things I haven’t done enough of:

    • Make things. I should make more stuff next year. 
    • Go to the gym, of course.
    • See friends – even if they do live outside London.

    Right, I think that’s me over and out until the new year. You could do with a break, and so could I. Let’s get this done – happy new year.

    , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 15 – 24 December 2025


    Radio edit this week.

    Thursday, 18 December

    Sunrise is past 8am. There’s always talk about scrapping daylight saving, but if we did, which way would we go? This survey from 2019 found that “the majority of Britons (59%) would opt to remain permanently on summer time, sacrificing light in the morning in the winter for more daylight on summer evenings.” That article was written in March though. I wonder if the results would change in December? The sun wouldn’t rise until 9am. 

    We arrived in France on Tuesday. The car we rented beeped for a thousand reasons: speed; lane discipline; other cars; the sheer joy of beeping. It beeped like a midwife toad, in fact. It was past midnight when we reached our destination and the sky was full of stars – impossible to look away, hard to go inside. Habit made me check for the glow worm hidden in the step, but it was too cold, of course.

    As usual we stayed in the countryside, surrounded by dense woods, lichen-covered trees and mossy boulders. If you were going to write a fairy story, this would be a great place to set it.

    We came back via Toulouse, and the newly opened Musee Des Augustins.

    Sunday, 21 December
    3:03 pm: Winter solstice in the UK.
    Back at home, we started listening to The Dark Is Rising on iPlayer. ‘Tis the season.

    I might re-read Mischief Acts over the holidays. I read it at the end of last year, and it took a while to get into. I think reading it a second time would be a smoother journey, and worth it. Feels like the season for that kind of story, too.

    Monday, 22 December

    A litter pick, as the sun rises. You reap what you sow – I skipped a few weeks and the bag is so full I can’t make it to the end of the route. 

    Tuesday, 23 December 

    Too dark to walk to the wood, so I head to the big park instead. Coloured lights flicker low to the ground as dogs in collars make slow progress. Owners walk with torches. Despite the dark, the birds are in full throat: blackbirds, robins, song thrushes and a redwing, so the app says. It’s good to be outside.

    Wednesday, 24 December
    I kept a note of the books I read this year, for the first time. On Alex’s advice I also kept a very short note of what I thought of each book. There are two things that hadn’t occurred to me when I started the list but they are, it turns out, extra benefits:

    1. Keeping a list made me more conscious of reading and encouraged me to read more. Yeah, gamification of sorts, but encouraging yourself to read more fiction instead of doom scrolling is no bad thing.
    2. I recorded what I’d read month by month. Looking back over it, I remembered finishing one of the books I enjoyed the most. We were in Suffolk and the sun was streaming in, filtered through a huge oak, right outside the window. We went to Sutton Hoo later that day and it was a good week. Book and the week are tied together. Since realising that I’ve added a bit of extra context to my notes. 

    Nah, I’m not going to share them. I’m no book reviewer, and sharing them was never the point. 

    Right, time to get a wiggle on. Happy Christmas if you celebrate, happy holidays if you don’t, and if it’s not a holiday, I hope it’s not too busy at work. Hang in there.

    , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 8 – 12 December 2025

    Tuesday

    Sunrise: 7:52am

    The weather is furious, hurling rain at windows and roaring into the sky. The whole house shakes with it, dreams are shaped by it, windows rattle and I can’t wait for it to end. 

    On the station platform I join the rest of the commuters huddled into coats and puffer jackets. We all face the same direction and brace ourselves against it. It’s dark, almost an hour until sunrise. The information board lists all the closed tube lines like a rebuke: why didn’t you leave earlier? What will you do now? Joke’s on them. We all know I’ll get the bus.

    From the train, orange rectangles hover in the dark as curtains open on the new day. At London Bridge I’m 42nd in a moving queue which spans the station front. I take a seat upstairs as the bus moves off, and stops abruptly at the lights. Tis the season! The whole bus shimmers red, as the light hits the condensation covering the windows. No one has wiped a hole to look out and we’re wrapped in a glowing red cocoon.

    Wednesday

    Sunrise: 7:53am

    A bright moon casts the same white light as these LED streetlights and the birds are singing for the sun. It feels like forever since I walked to the wood, less like a habit now and more like eccentricity or extravagance. In gardens and porches Christmas lights fight a stylistic battle: warm orange VS icy white. These days I favour icy white – winter isn’t what it was and I miss walking outside in thick frost or snow. Perhaps it’s coming?

    In the wood there’s a throaty song thrush. I hold my phone up for longer than necessary because I can’t believe this is what a song thrush sounds like. The app confirms it but I assumed it would sound sweeter. It sounds like a bird with a cold.

    More trees have fallen since I was here last. Roots weakened by the rain and trunks finally felled by the winds. It’s a big change, actually. So much open sky. I squelch along the path between the fields and two panicking pheasants struggle skywards. In the hedgerows the ivy is thick with berries. 

    On the way out of the wood there’s a dog walker I haven’t seen in ages.
    “Morning! It’s not raining!…Digbyyyyyyy!”
    Digby the dog makes a run for it. 

    Above the trees a flock of birds floats on the breeze. It takes a while to realise they’re seagulls – we’re 50 miles from the coast. I look for Jonathan, but if he’s there, he’s travelling alone together.

    Back on the street the Christmas lights are off and the moon sees me home.

    Other things

    , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 24 – 28 November 2025

    Monday

    Sunrise: 7:32am

    Heading to the city almost 2 hours earlier than normal, the lights are red smudges in a damp blue-black sky. Announcements urge you to take care; hold on; pay attention; report anything suspicious; watch yourself. We all shuffle forward in the same direction at the same speed.

    I break off down a side tunnel and wonder how many cameras are watching. Alone in the tunnel I yawn for too long, open my mouth as wide as possible and wonder if the security guards think I’m screaming. There’s a door to one side, ‘Official personnel only’ and a camera is trained right on it.

    Tuesday

    Sunrise: 7:34am

    Street lamps are still on. A murder of crows flies low overhead and I hear the beat of their wings as they pass. At the end of Green Alkanet Alley a boy stands waiting for a school bus. He’s talking to himself and surprised when he sees me. His hand flies up to his face, down again, up. 

    The city is full of sunshine and there’s a cloudless sky over the Thames. I wonder where the leaves from the ailing trees went when they fell. There’s not a trace left behind. The remaining ginkgo tree on Gracechurch street is yellow now, but there’s a small pool of leaves at its base.

    Wednesday

    Sunrise: 7:35am

    “I’ll blindfold them. Gag them. Yes, yes I can do that.”

    He’s joking but this man has said everything in the same tone since we arrived. He’s read out names, called people to court rooms, explained procedures, spoken to civilians who are worried and barristers who are not. I imagine he would help deliver a baby or stop a man with a shotgun in the same level tone. 

    I’ve re-read the first pages of a novel four times now while I wait, and the story isn’t sticking. The man sitting next to me is wearing a suit and loafers with no socks. He’s playing Candy Crush on a large iPad. I’m starting to wonder if I should download it myself. His barrister is, I think, sitting two rows over. They never make eye contact. The man only has eyes for his Crush.

    Two older people have just arrived. A mobile phone rang deep in a bag and one of them struggled to answer it. “Quick! Get it”, said the other, agitated. After rummaging in the bag she said, “Hello?” and we all heard an echo. The other person fished a phone from his pocket and looked at the screen, bewildered. The first said “Are you calling me?”. They both hung up, one having pocket dialled the other.

    The man in charge says nothing. He picks up one of the many yellow highlighters on his desk, and from where I’m sitting, it looks like he’s highlighting every single line of the document in front of him.

    Other things

    • Did you know there’s an artesian well in the basement of Waterstones Piccadilly? It used to supply the water for Simpsons. I don’t know why I know this but I was able to deploy this fact on Monday.
    • The managing director of Waterstones is actually James Daunt, the founder of Daunt Books – except that his first name is Achilles. I always feel sad about Waterstones, because it’s just owned by an American investment group. They own Hatchards and Foyles too.
    • It was 4°C one morning this week and yet we still had a frost. I think I’ve left it too late to bring the plants in.
    • I went to see Wayne Thiebaud. American Still Life, at the Courtauld. It was very good. (Thanks, Chris and George for the recommendation). It’s a small exhibition, so if you’re going, don’t miss his etchings and woodcuts on the first floor. I think they could be easily missed.
    , , , , , , , ,

  • 17 – 21 November 2025

    Monday

    Sunrise: 7:22am

    The heart of the wood is quiet. No bird song, only the sound of squirrel claws skittering across trunks and branches. It’s getting light but taking a while. The temperature has dropped. It’s five degrees now and the first frost will arrive tonight, settling on cars and sparkling orange under the streetlights. 

    Tuesday 

    Sunrise: 7:23am

    Awake before the alarm. Chisel the car from the thick frost with a supermarket loyalty card. It’s one degree, and this is the first heavy frost of the season. A point on the horizon blazes pink with the rising sun. As I climb the hill to Crystal Palace Station the horizon is behind me, and everything ahead sits in darkness. It feels like walking back in time, a chance to live last night all over again.

    Thursday 

    Sunrise: 7:26am

    The railway sidings look great from the train. Golden sun coats the car parks, the dilapidated lean-tos and the corrugated iron. It’s nature’s makeup—nature’s literal glow up. 

    It was an unremarkable sunrise up to this point, sky fading gently from dark to light. But suddenly outside looks more hopeful. I give up choosing a book to block it all out and soak it all in instead.

    I used my loyalty card as an ice scraper again. It’s not enjoying the attention. The surface is starting to peel off and the centre is weak now from the pressure. My fingers were so cold I had to suck them to get some warmth back.

    “Hello love. Hello? Hello? Hello love.” Someone on the train finally makes a connection. In the city the ailing trees are leafless, just a whisper now. 

    Friday 

    Sunrise: 7:27am

    The city is different at 1pm. Everyone looks happier, less harried – tourists, of course. People blink into the sun and take photos of themselves and each other. I follow my blue shadow up Gracechurch Street to Bishopsgate and meet two friends for lunch. 

    Later, we pass through Spitalfields market and find a second hand book about German dolls. Two of us flick through it while the other talks to the stall holder. We coo at the dolls faces with horror and delight. The dolls have rigid smiles, fixed stares, eyes swivelled up to heaven or too far to one side, no hair or too much hair. One doll has too human a face: it’s surely a real person trapped inside a doll. It’s hard to look away.

    Other things

    • Time to bring the plants inside to protect them from the frost. (If it’s not too late)
    • I seem to have a knack for working near plague pits. However, there are quite a few, so perhaps it’s harder not to work near one.
    • I saw a video of a robin singing this week, with its beak closed. It can do that because it has a syrinx, apparently.

    , , , , , , , ,

Get weekly updates by email, if you like: