I am back in England and so, it seems, is spring. The last four days have been beautiful: crisp, blue, fresh and floral. Cherry blossoms are like popcorn and candy floss over green lawns and they look good enough to eat.

We went for a walk today around Exwick and the air was cool and sometimes sickly green, an acidic freshness that reminds me of leaves at Rookwood. After taking the garbage out today I stood on the gravel behind the apartment and watched a plane, hundreds of feet above my head, silently glide through the sky leaving a double rope of cloud motionless behind it. I watched noiselessly, amazed at the lack of sound on such a clear, clear day, but all I could hear was the chatter of birdsong. Then, as the plane slid out of sight above the roof, came an echoed reply, a deep rumble and a slicing, dull, continuous crack, rushing to catch up with its origin. I watched the sound follow in the wake of the evaporating steam, only appearing as each rope of exhaust disintegrated into blue, as if it were the fluffy whiteness and not the machine hurtling through the air that produced that growling thunder. It made me smile and then I came inside to cook dinner.

I am happy today because a novelist said I could write. He used words much more eloquent than mine to tell me so, but it was a first time for me.