A notebook lost and found. I felt as if I'd lost a summer, the weeks of rain and sun, two holidays, my lists, scraps of started poems, ghostly, unborn. Then I wondered if it was lying somewhere in a drawer, case or under a sofa. In lost property. Did it get bored with my life and seek out another one, the way a cat does?

Perhaps it was wandering around another city, finding backstreets and a cafe where locals are chatting about the lottery or a neighbour's transgressions, a glass of chilled beer on the table.

I couldn't imagine where I'd left it. I searched under my bed, through the house, in every bag. And then I went to St Mungo's on Wednesday, as I did the week before, and there it was - on a chair in the TV room.

I swam this morning in a temper. So I pounded the pool until I'd worked it out of me. Now to return a pair of boots which have lasted about a month before falling apart. I used to believe that boots, at least, were made to last a winter.