Muesli in places people would never migrate to

There are places and there are people and there are places people seem unwilling to admit are places people shouldn't go. It was tricky, but Bessy managed to communicate this to Margaret as the latter balanced the ingredients of a bowl of muesli, one on top of the other, on the edge of Bessy's nose. I was rather surprised if only because Bessy has never shown the least bit of interest in the willingness of any being other than herself. Margaret seemed not to be phased and managed to communicate to Bessy the importance of always ending with a raisin.

Felix had wound up with unwilling participants in a devious mix up of salty water and fire crackers in the centre of Beijing. He was still there as we drank our tea together overlooking the English Channel and I listened to the echos of his archaic call to arms drifting across the world like swallows migrating from the Serengeti wearing knee length shorts and sartorial grins. I didn't bother asking him why.

George once absconded from a misconstrued cocktail of love and independence in the lower reaches of the River Congo, he told me on Friday. I asked if he didn't mean his independence was misconstrued over love and cocktails, as most seekers of such things belatedly find. He lifted his chin and looked at me down his nose. There are places, he said, that I should never be allowed to visit for I was sure to bind everyone interminably to hell. That's a pleasant thing to say, as far George goes.

Cookie welcomed me into the surgery with a jar of jellied miracles, which was great.

All this made me wonder if, like other misconstructed people, I seem to find places to be, willingly or not, where absconding is simply not an option. There's satisfaction in contemplating these things and coming to spurious conclusions about one's independence from it all.