Across the pond

Tranquillity restored. The sun is shining through the trees on Parliament Hill.  A jogger pounds down the middle of the road, his face glistening with sweat in his efforts to keep fit and to give himself an adrenalin high. A young woman is meandering up the hill, going at the pace of her child, not yet two years old. She uses the pauses to let the sun warm her and to gaze around at this osasis of peace in the middle of London.

The street is still disfigured by the barriers erected by the EDF men, who have had the pavement up these last few weeks while they lay new electricity cables. But they have not brought their infernal machines, which have been shattering my ear drums during working hours.

It is warm enough to breakfast of the terrace without a dressing gown, whereas yesterday I was shivering. My own digagnostics have cured the computer of its total breakdown, and today it is co-operating with my efforts to publish the Daily Novel.

The landline is still not dead. But I am no longer grinding my teeth with frustration and rage against Mr Richard Branson, to whom I am paying a lot of money.  And I am already calculating that I can probably save money by using the mobile and Skype while in London.

I am still in fury at the loss of my black tub ashtray. It is probably lying in a gutter somewhere where the young criminals tossed it. But maybe it will be picked up and given a second home by another tidy smoker.  And I can always buy a replica, whereas my tearaway teenagers will go on steadily smashing car windows until they are caught and put in a remand home.