It is one of those early spring mornings.

The earth is still cold and there is a cold insistent breeze behind the sunlight.

The magnolia has scattered its petals on the ground.

This morning a mist hung low over the earth. I got up early and went to my summer house.

I sat watching and waiting as the mist rose.

I look around. There are spiders’ webs in the corners. The roof has leaked. The pine table has pale stains where water has dropped. 

The two pots by the door still hold dead geraniums from last summer.

Today I will clear the summer house, clean it, and see if I can write out there again in the mornings.

It’s nearly two years since the last post in my journal. I just didn’t feel like writing.

Maybe, in the cool stillness of old age, if I keep my health, I will write some more.

This is the moment when the remains of the old year begin to be submerged by new growth.  The fields are green again with short new grass. The cut hedges are beginning to shoot.

Old things are exposed. The old tractor left in a field corner. The unused caravan green with mould. In the winter they were objects in a frozen panorama, ornamental even.  Now, in the greening spring, they are just redundant, waiting to be cleared, or simply disappear under new growth like the old harrow in the bramble patch.

I have been watching the rooks in the rookery by our house again.

They nest in the tops of the trees, nests that swing back and forth as their trees lean with the wind. Mostly, I think, they are old nests. But since January I have seen rooks returning with twigs, rebuilding the nests from last year.

Up in their tree-top village they chatter and scrap. At moments in the day, they rise and swirl above their tree and make lots of noise. In a few weeks from now the young will fledge. Some fall out of the nest. You can’t miss the litter of failed births.

But you don’t see an old rook, a rook that is past its prime but still carrying on.

The long senescence. That’s our species’s special trait.

Shall I write about the end-game? It is a time that comes to everyone.

Jamie sends emails quite often. Now we have a family Whats App. He and Alyssa are still together. I am very happy about that.

The rest of the family are all well, thank goodness.

Maureen is well, too, and Amanda has gone to university. She is studying, yes, International Relations. Jake is a bright eccentric boy, making his way through the French education system. I think he will become a scientist.

Lavinia is growing up. The arrangement seems to be working happily. I expect Little L will have her first Easter hunt this year. Maureen will come back for that.

I read about artificial intelligence and study the most recent publications. I helped Maureen with her book and proof-read it for her. It will actually be published in Germany first, in German of course. I think it is really good and could be successful.

Alan occasionally asks me to do stuff, like go to the centre called Auroville in India, to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. (I have added an account of the visit to My Back Pages.)

The UK has still has not left the European Union. The British parliament is deadlocked.

Hopeless.