My worms are not happy on this warm cloudy day in Galway. Eschewing fresh peelings from my lunch, George and George and their parents, siblings and offspring (all named George) press their bodies zigzag against the relative dryness of their hovel's lid. I drain their little home and move it into the shade. But I don't think their misery will pass until autumn.

By the way, did you see the satellite pictures of Greenland ice shelf, melting away in a few days? Karma?! Heat wave in the US, sunny days followed by snow in Scotland, wetness everywhere. Mudslides entomb pensioners rushing home from dinner, debris from rain-softened clay cliffs bury young women on seaside walks. The everyday turns perilous. Here in Galway, weather has been predictable in its unpredictability. We snatch pleasure in minutes, by the river or the sea or on grassy knolls, with beer tins or sandwiches or melting fists of ice cream, dashing for cover with so many others under the eaves of shops.

My pleasure has been so snatched this summer, with me typing my chapter on crowded buses behind the one onion-and-egg sandwich-eater (ugh). I have so much I want to do, write poetry and paint again after years of not painting and maybe see art again although so much of it is rubbish and watch movies again and read non-fiction and novels, not just escapist stuff and cycle along the prom at night feeling as free as I was when I was 19, not scared of the unpredictable, but exploring and observing and feeling. With the PhD, I have limited my world to a realm of apps and screens and virtual windows and calendar reminders. I want to break out of that. Walk woods and beaches and feel my heart pump faster in strange circumstances. To know the stranger in me.

<<