of the tick inside my RedSox cap. I remove and reseat the hat twice before I see it, a damselfly blue as the skies we’ve been having, blue as the eggs I cracked for my chilli smash this morning. I staked my claim on the day with that button-popping breakfast, set my plan. Down to the DIY sheds for timber and ironmongery then hang a gate I fashioned from an old fence panel. After lunch I’d retire to the keys and forge a thousand words of something new. Each word as fresh as a newly minted coin, to pinch from Hem, talking about a girl’s face at the door of his cafe, just come in from the rain. But I didn’t write a line. The day and the damsel got in the way.
