I seem to be full of potential beginnings. A hundred million so varied and diverse there is no conceivable way to follow all along their paths.

There are things I want to tell you. But I must admit I don’t know where to begin. This time last week, I was spitting blood. They were driving under spectacular clouds that day, going from nowhere to somewhere worse with intoxicating smiles. She was scared, she realised, of wanting more than she was wanted. Paul Mallet was learning how to “Get along with others”. Julie just wanted to put all the growing up business behind her and go back to being a 15 year old. She opened the conversation like you might open a door. When I walked away I left the flywire banging hopelessly against the door frame in the wind...

They could lead anywhere, take me everywhere, only with them, as with the threads of my life, I have no idea what to do. But that wasn’t what I actually wanted to write about today.

This morning, covered up to my knees in a potent mixture of cow shit and mud, I held a tiny chick, born only the night before. It sat meekly in the palm of my hand. It wasn’t scared at all, being too young to have been taught to fear big things without feathers yet. My Uncle, somewhat of a chicken collector, has 22 different breeds of chickens in all. From New Holland Blue, to Rhode Island Red, Andalusian, Campine, White Rock, Silver Spangled Hamburg, Buff Orpington and on and on. They are calm and docile birds, well cared for and happy to scratch around wherever they please. The chick, tucked safely against my coat, with its tiny wings and oversized feet made my sister and I coo at its cuteness. But in actual fact, it smelt terrible, like the inside of an egg I suppose. And that was even before it shat in my hand, a warm, runny brown liquid that dripped through my fingers. Despite its indiscretions against me, the chick and I have a deep and meaningful connection – we share the same birthday. Although it doesn’t feel like my birthday today. It doesn’t smell the way birthdays did when I was younger, the scent of excitement and suspense has been blown away by the wind. I guess that’s a sure sign I’m getting old.

Up here on my Auntie and uncles farm, like most of New Zealand, it has been raining and raining. But I’m still not sick of the steady stream falling from the sky yet. It’s distracting, or perhaps just relaxing, to stand and watch the rain roll off the shed. The drops fall in a perfect line every time, so much so that I can put my nose right up to where they fall, look out over fields at the pine tree pierced fog and stay perfectly dry. Small things amuse small minds. This morning’s work was to drench the larger mob of cows, steers if you want to be precise. My job really, was to watch at a safe distance. To me, city living vegetarian that I am, cows are quaint, milky smelling things that dot the rolling green hills of this New Zealand farm. They are also large, relatively dumb creatures that are strangely more scared of me than I of them. More to the point, they apparently don’t speak English. Considering that I can walk at them waving my arms and yell out “I am a vegetarian” and they will still try to high tail it over the fence. The irony seems to have escaped them. Now, in the afternoon, I am tucked away inside drifting away. I have been watching the flames flicker in the fireplace. The black smoke residue on the glass looks much like a dragon, wide mouthed and roaring, its tongue dancing in the flames. The cat is staring up at me with its bright beady eyes, requesting with the full extent of his politeness that I move my laptop immediately to make room for him. Unluckily for him, I don’t plan on being charitable. I’m trying, I inform him, to write a middle. But he knows I think, in all his cat wisdom, that I would be better off watching the flames, and waiting for these chickens to hatch before I count them, and really – who can argue with that logic?