It has been a very curious day.

I finished the third of three freelance projects that have been keeping me in and up for a week. Three! Just when I was about to throw my hands up in the air. It never rains, they say.

Three freelance projects, and the most boring one paid the most. Even from the most boring one, I learnt things. Things – who doesn’t like things? (I had typed “who doesn’t like thighs?”, but that is, perhaps, another question for another day.) I worked on a wine guide, and I learnt this:

Gletscherwein: Fabled oxidized, wooded white from rare Rèze grape of Val d’Anniviers; offered by the thimbleful to visiting dignitaries.

Dignitaries drinking out of thimbles. Delicate-winged dignitaries, maybe, visiting my treetop salon, where coloured baubles and sparkling diamonds hang from the branches.

A curious day.

I went to the post office this afternoon. An old man showed up in tweed and a hunch. There was an aura of smell around him. The queue stretched front and back and he cut in front of me and looked at me out of the corner of a glassy eye. I said, “Excuse me” and he looked at me out of the corner of a glassy eye. He looked at me out of the corner of a glassy eye, he took a step forward, he wobbled on his cane, he took a step forward and began to shout: “Help, help!” There was a flurry about. He said, “Help, help!” – his helps came in pairs – and I said, “How can I help?” He looked at me out of the corner of a glassy eye. A woman came out from behind the counter and he said, “Need to sit.” They found him a chair.

Later we were in Tesco and someone had left five pounds at the self-check-out counter. I felt bad for the girl who left it, but she was gone already, disappeared into the city. We spent it on bacon and chocolate milk.