Reasons to be cheerful in midwinter

• Oranges are in season.
• I am reunited with certain favourite winter clothes.
• Underwear won’t show, so it doesn’t need to be chosen with any care.
• Cats choose to spend more time indoors.
• I wake with Andrew (not hours earlier).
• If the garden is tidied, it stays tidy—weeds don’t grow back.

There must be more.

Repartee

Andrew: ... the weird thing, when you go to visit and actually look at what they are saying, is how moderate and reasonable the Occupy people seem to be. Most of them are only saying the same sort of things as most of the other people you hear. [As he talks he is approaching the wall with a new photo off the big printer, this one cropped to a tall portrait format.]

I: [looking critically at the new print] Why such huge margins?

Jón: [without missing a beat] Yes, that’s the kind of question they’re asking.

It’s this sort of thing that makes me glad I live in Cambridge, despite the drizzle.