The person by the window.

A few things about me

I live in Bath, in a place where the books have gradually outnumbered the shelves. My desk faces a window with an unexceptional view: part of a wall, a drainpipe, and enough sky to tell whether a walk needs a coat. I have found that an unexceptional view leaves useful space for thinking.

I began writing letters regularly after moving away from a close friend. We both discovered that the small things disappeared from our calls. A good conversation covered the news, but the colour of a kitchen cupboard or a ridiculous grocery list rarely survived. Letters gave those details somewhere to go without requiring them to become important.

My reading is similarly unhurried. I keep essays and short stories close by, and I often return to a book before finding a new one. A second reading can feel like meeting the same street in another season. I write down the questions it leaves me with, rather than collecting lines that sound impressive out of context.

Outside the little desk, I walk, make marmalade when the fruit is right, and mend the pockets of coats I should probably replace. This site brings those small routines together in a public notebook. The personal details are mine to tell; the private lives of friends stay in the envelopes where they belong.