I'm off to pay my respects at a funeral in a few minutes - Jim, our neighbour, who's been a good friend to the family ever since we moved in. Which was before I was born; more than twenty years ago. Jim, I wasn't terribly close to, personally; he hadn't been out much the past few years. His health has been on the wane, and he's been in and out of hospitals for his hip and associated things. The reason I don't want to go is his wife. She's always been so good to us, and she cried when I went in to show her my Debs dress. I'm afraid of seeing her frail.

I don't want my grandmother to come either, so I have to see them standing beside each other and think: Jim's dead.

Everything's changing, recently.

Time is a face on the water.