Last Christmas my parents ended up in separate hospitals. I spent the festive weeks driving a relentless triangle between them and home. I was fast becoming a car component.
Painfully early on New Year’s Day I was trudging over the footbridge that linked the deserted multi-storey to the high-dependency unit, when the dawn chorus kicked in. In some dark corner below me, blackbirds were rolling out their melodies. On the wires overhead, the fax-machine racket of the starlings began.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
