October 17

6.30am and the day begins with a bright moon: a squashed oval kept company by little winks of light, some distant, some moving much closer – they are planes going to Heathrow.

The eastern sky is every so slightly stained by the coming sun. Minute by minute, a milky blue hue spills out and seeps east, slowly filling the sky.

Coming up Church road, is a very young, haggard looking woman pushing a pram with a sleeping child inside. Her face is sharp like a hawk. Who is she? Where is going? She looks strained and unhappy. Is she the mother or a nanny? She looks like a child herself.

She doesn’t notice the moon, the stars, the planes, the spilling sunlight.