Coming up for air, I decided to cycle into town to pick up next month’s book group selection: The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien. But when I went outside I found my bicycle had been stolen.

I took the bus instead, bought the book, then came straight back.

Saturday December 29th

Tomas rang and he dragged me out for a walk. He could tell something was up and I told him about the cat. I suspected something Wittgensteinian was coming my way and I wasn’t disappointed.

‘You know, Brian,’ he said, ‘Wittgenstein once said that “death is not an event in life. We do not live to experience death.” ’

‘But I have experienced death. Just not my own yet. And I’m not sure I care for it very much.’

‘I don’t think many of us do,’ he reflected, ‘but death is not so easily avoided. Of course, Ludwig had a theory about that, too.’

‘I bet he did.’

‘He said that if we equate eternity with timelessness, then “eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.” ’

I thought about this as we walked on. And it occurred to me that, if Wittgenstein was right, the keeping of a diary was itself a form of eternity. For what was a diary if not a record of somebody’s life as seen in the present; a journal of daily fragments of the here and now; a collection of tiny pieces of not being dead?

I began to share these ideas with Tomas but he started to shake his head. ‘Well, that’s not quite what Wittgenstein means—’

But I stopped him there. A poet should be allowed a little bit of poetic licence.

When I got back home, I called Liz.

Sunday December 30th

In the Betjeman Arms, we were on our third Guinness and second bowl of pistachios.

‘This is my favourite time of the year,’ said Liz, happily. ‘I love the lull of these in-between days.’

‘Same here,’ I said, taking another gulp. ‘Although yesterday I got so old, I felt like I could die.’

‘Did it make you want to cry?’ she asked, in mock earnestness.

I smiled. As ever, Liz had caught the reference.

‘I’ll tell you something that does make me want to cry. . .’ I continued, for here was a topic to which I could warm, ‘. . . all these retrospectives on the year just gone. Whenever I switch on the TV or open the newspaper: Sports Personality of the Year, Wedding of the Year, Pipe Smoker of the Year . . .’

‘Poetry Book of the Year,’ said Liz. We shared an enjoyable grimace together.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, apprehensively. ‘Why did you go and see Toby Salt in Saffron Walden?’

‘Oh, I didn’t go there to see him,’ she’d said. ‘That was just a coincidence. I went to see Chandrima. Her publisher had invited her to read some poems to promote her new book.’