February 29th

I travel to York this cold, frosty, bright morning. At York station, a woman poses strangely beneath the iconic Victorian clock above the footbridge, and I see a clear plastic knife on the steps down. I collect a pair of bottle green trousers I have ordered online, from the website's corresponding shop, where customer service is taken seriously and I am treated with kindness, and invited to try on my trousers, which I decline to do, telling the young assistant that I know they are the right size (I have others the same but in different colours).

In the cafe where I eat my favourite Bostock (or brioche aux amandes) and drink a decaff cappuccino, I share a table with a young man wearing headphones and reading Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death. I go to therapy. Mostly I feel glad it is February 29th, since in leap years the actual day of my Dad's death arrives and stays for a day - before going away again for four years. In the other years its absence underscores his and is always upsetting (as I have often written about here and in the old blog before, so you know it's true). Today's Google doodle might have been made for me and my family. 28 years. So, so.