"The thing is," says Oscar, draining his coffee, "is that the British one pound coin is very thick, and around the edge it has something written in Latin."

"Right," I say.

"Or Welsh." He orders another latte. "One of those two. Which is the one with lots of 'w's?"

Outside the window, through the girlie grey steam, the autumn weeds are waving in a distinctly springish wind. I think I could almost qualify as a perpetual motion machine, infinitely running a distracted loop between the untended garden and the untended computer, if it weren't for the midpoint between the two, which is the television and which is being tended just fine.

I stopped doing creative things three months ago. What happened?