The smell of croissants

Since my last post I've been aware that this one would be my 250th. I felt that the roundness of this number required a more considered post than usual, so I've been waiting for inspiration. Various possibilities have passed by - listening to Gordon Brown's surprisingly impressive and inspirational speech on education this week; the usual fascinating obituaries that I read on the bus to work each morning, such as the Loyalist paramilitary in Ulster whose day job was drag artist; Marcus du Sautoy's polished Radio 3 essays on music and mathematics that threw light on both; my football team's worst series of defeats for 46 years. But none of these drew me to the keyboard.

And now I've woken up on a beautiful autumn morning, with sunshine on the trees and bouncing off the white walls of the house opposite, and I'm off to the Tate this morning (while across the world Tabasco lies underwater and my friends worry over their out-of-contact relatives).

And as I, still half asleep, prepared breakfast, I was jolted awake by the smell of hot croissant as I opened the oven door: a smell rich with memory and promise. That moment, past almost before I was aware of it, was something I wanted to record.