It's raining, maliciously and unrelentingly. On the floor in the coffee shop, while I'm waiting for the bus, there's a piece of paper that I want to pick up and read, but don't. My mother phones with her annual list of what she wants me to buy. I dutifully write it down. Then she tells me all the same stories she told me yesterday when she called. Now I don't point that out any more, I figure if it makes her happy to tell them again, who am I to be a killjoy. She's been drinking, I can tell, she says she misses me. My mother only loves me when she's drunk. For a while. Then comes the stage where we're all being nasty, or so we're told. She asks me for the eighth time when my last exam is. "I've had it already, it was on Tuesday."

Those of our readers currently in Australia should know that they are always welcome here, at any time, for any length of time, and for any reason with no questions asked. Just thought I'd throw that in, in case decisions are getting made.