a cold morning

in North Oxford - the view over snow covered tennis courts from my mother's flat, with a paper cut out balloon - so far as I remember, designed by Hans Andersen originally - he of the Little Mermaid and other stories (his fairy tales presented to me on my first birthday with an inscription to me from my parents: "Kate - her first birthday, her first book." Pause to contemplate why I've always favored realism, not fantasy.

Shockingly cold and damp, and we're perched sulkily in a bad-food cafe with internet (there being none in the flat) (note to The World - Morton's used to serve good sandwiches, and we've just been served some which were both insufferably nasty, with indifferent - to say the least - service. Do not patronize) Freezing some more - so a short post.