1. Looking for an email I sent recently, I realise I have items in my folders going back to 2005. I spot a set of correspondence that was very hard to read and to write. Looking over them again, the misery I felt at the time doesn't come back, except as a vague memory. It feels as if I am being told about something that has happened to someone else. I select them all, click delete, and they are gone.
2. Paper Dragons by James P. Blaylock. This story is heavy with mist and wet trees and waiting. It's about a man who is building a dragons from silk, oil, 'a spray of fine wire spun into a braid', silver scales, piano wire, copper and bones. And it's about a scientist camping on the cliffs waiting for a behemoth hermit crab, 'blind and gnarled from spectacular pressures'. And it's about suspecting -- but not knowing -- that there might be boney, beaky creatures floating unseen in cloud chasms. It's one of my favourite short stories; and every so often, I'll think of it and want to read it again. Tonight, while Katie cooks supper, I curl up on my sofa and read it.
3. Katie brings me a mug of hot chocolate to help keep out the cold.
