A DAY IN BULLET POINTS

• A long chat with a dear friend about weariness - how being surrounded by psycho drama and the sheer weight, sometimes, of living, has brought it on. I feel great sympathy. Perhaps high pressure days exacerbate this sort of feeling. I later get a lovely email saying how the conversation has had a cheering, lightening effect.
• It isn't raining. Or is it? Its such a faint fall of moisture that when I think I hear it in silent moments I can't be sure. So I go for mini strolls and am even more unsure. It's moisture, hanging rather than falling. Very dark clouds, shedding only the faintest of loads. Reminds me of Dartmoor.
• On my constitutional, the road is shimmering blue. The heat haze reminds me of childhood. Then, tarmac melted under bicycle tyres, the tread popping and cracking as the wheels threw off the tar.
• Work today is thinking. A sustained imaginative effort needed. Visualising an event through, like a film you haven't yet seen.
• I'm accustomed to blackbirds being the last song of the day, but it's pigeons tonight.
• A single dog has barked all day. Maddened by the pressure?
• It needs to rain.
• It's a long time since a book captivated me as much as Robert Harris' latest. I finish it today, having devoured it from the first page. I don't normally do novels. I tire of most after less than a chapter.
• And I get approached for a professional writing gig. Very flattering, but we'll have to see where it leads, if anywhere.