7.09 pm

A quiet day of work and dogs. I packed nine or ten more boxes in the old apartment this morning, and I'll go back and finish the rest either tomorrow evening or Wednesday. Then there's moving everything out, which needs to be done on Thursday (if I want help from the boy) and must be done by Saturday. The amount of junk I've thrown out astounds me. All this trying to be green and carbon neutral and Berkeley-hippie-esque rendered completely redundant with one move.

Then I get to do it all again (maybe) at the end of June, when I leave this house and go live in the Castro Valley apartment. Still undecided whether or not to look for a place closer to school. The idea of spending over an hour a day to get to school makes me less than happy. Neither does the idea of spending more than a grand for rent.

7.18 pm

The boy and I got seeds, and they're starting to grow. The basil is poking up little tendrils of leaves. They unfurl by the hour - every time I look there are more. The watercress and the thyme have put up little shoots too. The coriander and the tomato seeds haven't done anything yet, but boy says the big ones take longer. What I like most of all is the smell that comes off them when I lift the cover up - heavy and earthy, like fresh turned soil.

Time to light the mosquito coils and watch the sun get tangled in the trees on its way down.