Tuesday, September 25

Sheen Lane At Sunrise


I walk by this ugly building, forever with its "temporary and long-term space available," every day on my way to the office or train station. I no longer see it yet, on a cold clear morning , it catches my eye : the sunrise makes it handsome somehow. Certainly urban.  There used to be a cinema at this junction but that was before my time and now long gone.

Rusty and I run at 5AM and I take a flashlight to see the trail in Richmond Park, which is completely deserted and pitch dark leaving only the stars and the bucks groaning and me with my scary thoughts (axe murderer ?).  As the false dawn arrives I remind myself : yes, indeed, we are on a small planet circling a mid-sized star in a universe that has hundreds of billions of them.  Rusty could care less which is the right way about it.

Madeleine: "Do you know what I just realised? I have to show all the new kids around the school." [Dad's note: open-house for the prospects this week]
Me: "You will make a great ambassador."
Madeleine: "I don't even know where the art department is. Or the science lab."
Sonnet: "Did I tell you the story about my friend's husband who was getting his PhD in chemistry and left his experiment in the lab over the weekend ? It blew up the science building!"
Madeleine: "Did he get a PhD for the explosion?"
Sonnet: "Probably not but imagine his Monday morning."