The rain drummed loud on the roof tiles and it was dark that morning. I sat listening to the tyres on the wet road. I sat waiting for the rain to ease and for the light to come on in the house. While I waited I wiggled my bare toes and I didn’t think about much, only the fact that the leaves had begun to turn, that summer was well and truly gone for this year. Sometimes I glanced at my watch but the minute hand appeared to have stuck so I stopped checking it and concentrated on the movement of the leaves behind the window and the pattering of the rain, now insistent, now soft – a rain of pauses, arpeggios and adagios. Once in while there was a slight metallic ring to the rain, like a triangle or a zill, and the movement of the traffic outside lent the whole a solid bass note and that’s how it was, that wet, dark morning, waiting for the light to come on.