I'm not about to walk down the alley that leads to my fire escape. I couldn't if I wanted to anyway -- it's blocked off from the street to prevent intruders. I did crawl out the window once when Fanny knocked out the screen in pursuit of a bird or possibly another cat. Down the fire escape stairs I ran, and back and forth along the alleyway until I caught her by the scruff of the neck. She would have found her way back anyway I suppose, but I wasn't thinking. What if she'd climbed up a different fire escape and got adopted by someone who didn't read Thomas Hardy?

If I stood in the alley today and looked up I'd see icicles two feet wide and six feet long. When the weather warms up overnight they will fall with one crash after another. These icicles can be seen hanging from all the old redbrick buildings around here. Very pretty I admit, but you wouldn't want to be standing under them...

I'm staying in tonight for another reason. The rarely shown movie "O Lucky Man!" is on tv. I saw it when it first came out around 1973. Very strange and very surreal, starring Malcolm McDowell with Helen Mirren in a small part. And the soundtrack by Alan Price, erstwhile keyboard player for the Animals, is fantastic and curiously ignored by the official appraisers of soundtracks and music in general.

"Crash!" It's happening sooner than predicted. Alfie, stop squirming.