High City on a Hill (Ch 15)

Finally, the final chapter.

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Chapter 15 — Epilogue

It had been raining all night, summer squalls lashing against the long windows, on the morning that my son was born. Now, when those hours of travail were finally over, the skies had cleared with the dawn. The sun greeted a world made fresh and new, and slipped in to lie bright across the foot of the bed, and I would not have the drapes pulled. Let the furnishings fade, just for today, if the room could be lapped in this joyous tide of light.

I lay back on the clean pillows, utterly drained but triumphant. Both the baby and I had been washed, dressed and made presentable. Now the early sunlight slid across the coverlet. Outside the window, as if by magic, the dusty roofs and treetops had been reborn, and here within, my son slept in his nurse’s arms, tiny, crumpled and miraculous.( Read more... )

Unreliable evidence

I found my missing shopping bag again after three months... in the pocket of a rucksack I hadn't used since taking a weekend away, thus completely disproving my conviction that I had "consciously pushed it aside" in my bag the day before! This neatly explains where and why it had disappeared in the first place, but only goes to emphasise my existing belief that I should make an appallingly bad witness in a criminal case, and that first-hand witness evidence, the supposed gold standard, is actually shockingly unreliable, even when the witnesses are quite honestly convinced that they remember having heard or experienced something :-(


I have decided to retain the string bag which I have been using as a substitute, and to put away the 'flimsier bag' instead, even though the latter takes up less space when folded than the former. I already have another flimsy folding shopper in the pocket, after all...