ready

The day has been rather pleasant, pretty much amounting to an extension, of sorts, to the action-packed weekend that has just passed. Though I spent much of it working on a presentation that I am to give at some stage or another, I was able to do so at my leisure, taking occasional - if sometimes extended - breaks to chat to loved ones, to eat, or carefully map the finer details of the thin coat of paint that covers the plasterboard wall against which my desk rests.

That the week starts in earnest come the morning is no hardship; it's not often that I get the chance to spend time with my sister, living, as she does, 5441 miles from our family home. It's nice to be reminded, even if infrequently, of how it feels to be a complete family, whether all of the traditional posts are filled or not; ours aren't, we were broken fifteen years ago, but that doesn't matter now; the pieces at the core of it all were never really pulled apart, bound, as they were, by that one, best-defined gravity.

There were fireworks, real ones, the dazzling radiance of an artificial sun and its duotone landscape, snow angels where there were none, and the strengthening of those ties that I like best to wear; you make for the finest company, Matt; that's not common. Leggy Swedish women with strong hands, amusing conversations with humourously depraved homelanders, and tonight's long and crazy dinner, with far too much port, sherry and claret for a non-drinker.

And freezing fogs; we stop dead as we step into the cold of the night, sending the torpid air swirling visibly outward, the smell of coffee and log fire in tow. Everything is cast into soft relief; built as it is, Cambridge goes over the top in lending herself to my perception of otherworldliness.

There are times when I wish that I could capture moments.