What’s on my mind: Sarah Moss

Raynaud’s syndrome: 5%
I’ve just lost sensation in the top joints of four fingers and if I don’t go and find some gloves soon, the chilblains will turn to frostbite. But I won’t be able to find my gloves, or at least not a matching pair, because I lose things. I lose things because I am an idiot. But I found a missing cycling glove yesterday while looking for a hat, which I didn’t find. Are cycling gloves thin enough for typing? Three fingers on the left have turned white. (Is that left? I’m never sure. I’m an idiot.) Perhaps a cup of tea might help, holding it. Can’t be bothered.

Not Google: 1%
I am not going to Google myself to see if I’ve annoyed too many people with the column I didn’t think was all that controversial. I am perpetually surprised by what turns out to be controversial. This is because I am an idiot, and also because I’ve never used social media.

Snow and jelly: 80%
Would the book I am writing make more sense if the minor character leaves with the major character? Can I change that scene in the kitchen without giving away the ending too early? Would he smell of cigarette smoke, anyway? I don’t think he smokes much and it’s mostly an excuse for stepping out. Have I ever met anyone who smokes but not much? Maybe he should step out twice, in which case he would definitely smell of cigarettes and she would notice.

The snow that afternoon isn’t exactly falling, wrong verb. Eventually, of course, doesn’t everything, gravity, but there’s too much wind for straight lines. Not whirling, overused and anyway it’s not circling, not that orderly. Chaos, tohu-bohu, without form and void. What’s it like, what are the shapes, when you’re out in a blizzard? It’s not very visual. The disorientation is sensory, but she’s not out in it, through the window it has to be visual. Shaking, scattering. Flying, maybe. (Through the air with the greatest of ease.) Scurrying, dancing. Borrow an earth-bound verb, might be interesting. Gyrating. What’s fast and disorderly? Snow rioting in the air, mobbing the hedgerows. No, don’t do that. You can’t hear snow, usually, though maybe in a storm, thin Victorian windows.

There’s the fire crackling, wood, and conversation, but she might hear it against the glass behind her, with the wind onshore, and she’d hear the waves, I think, much deeper than the other sounds, probably have almost stopped hearing them by now, because she’s been there hours. She’d miss other noises, traffic and birds. There’s too much about food. Though they are having dinner, and it is a kitchen. Maybe cut some of the detail, though I don’t want to lose the wine jelly.

What’s that light like, the translucence? Not quite like coloured glass, there’s the wobble, the jiggle, though jelly and glass are both liquid in suspension. That might be interesting. There could be stained glass, it’s that kind of building, though she’ll have to be remembering because it’s been dark for hours. What about the sound of him turning out the jelly? Suction, the way it unseals. There’s that movement, which is downwards, and the snow, which is lateral and chaotic though eventually landing. Remember looking up at falling snow, I must have been about five, bedroom window of that very cold house, seeing infinity maybe for the first time. She could do that, couldn’t she, earlier, while there’s still a bit of light. Not that she’d be one for pondering infinity now, but she might remember, give her a bit more back-story. Or him, he could look up. He’s the one who needs an extra memory or two, more sense of where he comes from. Did it snow there when he was little? Could have done, once anyway, all I need.

My eldest chid: 10%
I hope my older son, whom I believe to be just on the right side of a contested border, is OK. I hope he’s having a good time. I wish he’d answer my message. I mustn’t nag. I’d like to know where he is. Not that it would make any difference. He has every right to his own adventures.

Drivers: 0.5%
So much traffic out there today. I wish they’d all try cycling, just once, just so they know what it’s like.

A holiday in Japan: 0.5%Maybe I will go to Japan next year, to the mountains.

Lunch: 2%
I think I might make soup for lunch today. There’s that half-chilli, garlic and plenty of onions, tin of tomatoes, send P down the garden for rosemary and oregano, the loaf I made last night is enormous, especially with one son not here to eat it. He’s probably fine, these days no news is good news, I’d know if anything had gone badly wrong. Probably.

Parcel: 1%
Oh, post! Oh, parcel! New skirt!