“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain” *

'I'm stressed,' she said. Important people were coming to see her work. I slipped away with the children into the rain. It is important for people to see the artist without the baggage of her family. The clouds were dark, low, heavy, dated - like a thousand Avro Vulcans. The light was mean. But the children like it when I take them swimming. Anything to be in water. If we were on a ship and it started listing they'd be jumping up and down with joy. (Actually they're doing that now.) The rain was so heavy it was flattening. Even the contents of the fox-raided green bins looked washed and presentable, so thorough the downpour. But we love it when it rains. It takes us away from the urban. Wet heads face music. Tall trees sway with epicist wisdom and a kind of humour meets strength as floppy feet slap on the freshened slabstones. Anyway, we raced to the bus and jumped aboard and slipped down the hill like a tickled trout before arriving at the public swimming pool. The children were in their element. Gills appeared. Fins formed. 'I wonder how mummy's getting on,' said our daughter, slipping away again like a mermaid. The son meanwhile tried to make sense of the warping effect of water on his legs. (He likes what he does not understand.) I stared into space. I looked too serious apparently. It was just then that I realised I had jumped into the pool with the mobile phone in my pocket. What an idiot. Amazingly it started vibrating again an hour or so later when I was in the middle of an eye-test. I couldn't answer it. I was too busy grappling with the letters forming and fading in front of me. The children watched this spectacle from the wings. I was impressed the phone had survived. A machine blew a puff of air into my eyes to measure their internal pressure. These eyes. A small torch is flashed in my eyes to determine how well my pupils react. This apparently helps reveal any possible neurological problems. Eyes. What eyes have seen. We returned to the flat. The visit for the artist had gone well. 'I'm not stressed,' she said. A fish popped out of our son's mouth.
* Mark Twain 1835-1910