Today I saw an old friend who said she reads this blog. It’s strange to think of this thing having readers. It’s so sporadic and personal and uncertain. There’s often a film of depression hanging over it when I write. Often I post to remind myself I exist. I suspect that’s a very teenage think to say. But it’s true.

Also I don’t know whether the idea of having an audience changes my approach to writing. I’ve always been surprised whenever anyone tells me they’ve read something I’ve done, whether it’s for a national publication or a fanzine I distributed in a basement bar.

In honour of this strange fancy of words being read, here are some vignettes from my day before they disappear from my mind forever.

– Taking my friend’s dog Arthur for a walk, and reaching a point where he refused to go on, I refused to go go back, and we reached a silent impasse while passers by passed by. It was a happy moment of inertia

– Being in the climbing centre with another friend and accidentally calling one of the colour coded routes the “penguin”, a nickname that I hope sticks, despite its utter misleading inaccuracy

– Cycling to Ladywell and coming across a defunct estate pub somewhere in Bermondsey. It reminded me of the walk through the Meadows estate on the way to seeing Nottingham Forest play at the City Ground in my youth. Back in the present, an old man in a mobility scooter was sat, watching me, in front of the pub. I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t want to disturb his peace or his privacy. So I cycled along a bit further and took a picture of the pub from a much more banal angle.

– Further along the route, on a supposedly quiet road, a BMW driver attempting a blind overtake straight out of a roundabout and nearly killing me. I swerved into the gutter, and screamed “you absolute fucking cunt” at his disappearing vehicle. It’s always interesting what words come out in these moments.

– Being in the garden with Kelly and Jenny, telling meandering stories with one sauna-based denouement left in and the second sauna-based dénouement accidentally left out.

– Eating vienetta and discussing linear v spiralling time. It’s sad to me that I will never live to see the 1910s.

– Cycling up south London hills on the way home, enjoying the dark, silent backstreets. The cool summer breeze, and the partially clouded half-moon pointing the way back home