The stormy weather and the heat have collided, bringing us an evening under a hot soggy blanket. On my late night walk through the neighbourhood the perfume from the frangipani, jasmine and other unnamed vegetation was soup to wade through and emerge fragrant and befuddled.

I’m in a funny place in my brain again. It’s the end of the semester and unemployment is lurking around the corner despite all my efforts to be a Good Girl. This semester the student feedback from the course I teach has been amazingly positive, so that is a happy cloud to ride on, but it’s not made for racing. Isn’t it crazy that when you have all the time in the world somehow nothing seems to get done? Where is my busy?

“A toy boat, a toy boat, a toy boat, ” said Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, “a toy boat on the Serpentine, it’s ecstacy – ecstacy.”