1. Pigeons fly towards us down the path at face height. I hold my nerve: "They don't want to hit us," I tell Alec, who is laughing and marvelling in the backpack.
2. Poor Alec has a meltdown at the end of lunch -- he's almost falling asleep at the table, and coming to the final spoonful of his bake-tayto and beans makes him feel just too sad for words. I clean him up and cram him into the backpack. "Poor little thing," says the lady behind us, "He was being so good eating his lunch, right up until the end." Alec calms right down again -- I think he must have understood the compliment.
3. Now that Alec is napping, I'm going to lie here for just five minutes, and then I'm going to get up and do some wor-
