Sitting in a Larchmont living room, I listen with one ear open as my daughter and her piano teacher walk amidst the fine details of a Bach piece

A velveteen rabbit lies abandoned on the bed. Sunday afternoon creeps quietly up through the open window.

We’ve come to the end of a busy week here. Lessons, activities and all manner of learning have flooded our tiny school.

It’s a blazingly hot Sunday afternoon here. Temperatures have rocketed up to 100 degrees and everybody’s feeling the heat.

It’s a cool grey morning. Hints of blue are emerging to push the clouds aside but the heat of the afternoon is for now a vague promise.

And so we’re back in the land of sunshine and disfunction. We flew home last weekend on a plane ride so bumpy in places that Mr Dylan himself might have had a thing or two to say about it!

Sitting in silent communion with the spirits of the Tazza Fountain in Hyde Park’s Italian Gardens I feel the magic of this particular spot once again.

It’s a bright and sun scorched morning as Duke and I step out on our usual outing through the neighbourhood.

Through the quiet air of a family evening the songs from Rough and Rowdy Ways float from the stereo. We sit gathered together in the absence of our son who has departed for London Town.

Solitude has taken up residence in our dwelling in the precious minutes before the children and the hound are awake. My husband long ago drove off to work, leaving me free to wander through memory’s halls.

The past few weeks have been marked by resonances. Voices from poetry, history or theatre have figured so strongly that they are escaping from my mind, ready to leap onto the written page.

There have been days of overwhelming business of late, infused with that peculiarly American insatiability. It climbs right up inside your soul and grabs you by the throat, seemingly intent on stealing your last breath too.