Beside me, children sing the ‘Hokey Cokey’. I subconsciously put my left foot in – and out – under the desk, where I face an empty page. Willing concentration to return, I turn to a tried and tested method: staring out of the window. The small garden is a stage for white butterflies that flutter in the vista, ringing in the cyclical changes viewed from this spot. Snowdrops, daffodils, dandelions, grasslands, mud.

The library was the last refuge of those in need of peace and quiet; now, the apple has been plucked from the tree

‘Woah, the hokey cokey cokey!’ The sharply increased volume makes me physically jump. To my right, a man grimly adjusts his headphones and swigs from a flask. Now, five little speckled frogs were sat on their speckled log. A toddler scoots past, crying, followed – e

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