Notes from the margin

The first cold morning of the season: every window on the street fogged at the same height, as if the whole terrace had agreed on it.

On the bedside table

A secondhand book of walking essays with someone else’s pencil marks in the margins. We are reading their underlinings as closely as the text.

A bakery two streets over sells yesterday’s loaves at half price after four. The best toast of the week came from a Tuesday sourdough on a Wednesday.

Editing this issue, we kept cutting the conclusions. Most of the stories were better when they stopped one paragraph earlier.

Playing in the office

Solo piano recorded so close you can hear the pedals. It makes the room feel larger and the afternoon slower.

On the harbour wall, a fisherman mending a net with the same knot, over and over, without once looking down.

A stationery shop that still cuts paper to order. We asked for a single sheet, folded once, and they wrapped it like a gift.

Recommended by a reader

A slim guide to identifying clouds, written for children and far better than most books for adults. We now look up more than we did.

A good walk needs a destination you are willing to abandon. A good essay too.

Late summer evenings at the allotment: everyone watering at once, the hoses hissing like a slow audience.

Rain on a skylight, recorded on a phone and played back in winter. Surprisingly good company.

A reader’s windowsill

After our call for windowsill photographs, the most common object was not a plant but a stone. Nearly every one came with a story about a particular beach.