Trams and trees; cobbles and churches.

I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. It has been a beautiful day in Köln - I've seen it through the kitchen window. Trams have clattered past all day, presumably carrying people to the appointments of their day. I can just see the top of the carriages.

I venture out twice, once to buy teabags and later to buy food at Bio Für Alle. I'm in part of the old city. Trees line the cobbled roads. Church steeples punctuate the skyline, their harsh lines softened by a multitude of trees. It's warm, but not oppressive - people stroll, sit, throw frisbee. It's quiet, for a city.

Monday is meeting day. I speak to my colleagues, I discuss a customer complaint with a US associate, I sell training. I update a diagram, extend a document, book a hire car. I phone Angus, revising for biology, and Claire, in a pub in Glasgow.

I listen to the Vote Now Show while I eat herring and salad and sip a glass of red wine. Then I finish Le Guin's Powers in bed.