Emma Jones

There are no more than twenty steps from my back door to my shed. I have flowers but mostly weeds. A bay leaf bush, some camellias, overgrown grass specked with dandelions and brown patches from my dogs piss. It’s a sun trap, it’s not very private, it’s my garden. I don’t care if I must say hello to my neighbours if it means I get to have garden. When I sit in the back to think, cry, smoke or write, I can hear the house being built down the street, power tools, metal on metal, BBC Radio 1. Someone is cooking meat. Wood pigeons, blackbirds, cats and magpies. They pass through and pick at the dead grass I have mowed but not swept. “Enjoy,” I say, and they cock their little heads at me and take the pieces to their nests. I can pretend their singing is a thank you to me. They’ll be back tomorrow. My dog barks at the top of her lungs and the chorus from the other terrace gardens begins. Big dogs, small dogs. I tell her to stop, but I smile. I can identify some of the distant bar...

'Has Anyone Heard of This?' is my favourite thing to say when I finally discover/get into something that has been very famous for a long time. I have recently been saying this about Akira Kurosawa. As a Film Person, I've always been very aware of Kurosawa, but I just never dove in. This year, it was time to dive. Starting with 'Stray Dog.' Coincidentally, I was ill when we put on this movie, nauseous (I think I did throw up a couple of times during). Digustingly, these are the perfect conditions under which to watch this film with maximum empathy. The driving emotion of this film is anxiety. It's being pressed up against the reality of the biggest fuck up of your life so far. It's also the hottest week of the year. Everyone is sweating profusely, all the time, and because it's so wonderfully shot, you're drawn in, and you feel hot too. Even in cold, February England. Mifune looks ill and like he is buzzing with anxiety. Where is that gun? I’m terr...

The light on the hallway carpet, the smell of warmed lino in the bathroom. I can feel the sun coming through the frosted window on the back of my head when I sit down to pee. I could cry. I hate the winter. I try to appreciate the beautiful things about it, but England is grey for months at a time, and I’ve exhausted all the enrichment within walking distance. The back of my house, facing the garden, gets all the sun, it rises on the horizon across from the office window, beating down on the glass apartment building across. The office is brighter than I’ve seen it in months - I can see the dust on the bookshelves and new light is cast on my little trinkets and frames. The sky is endless blue, for the first time in a while. Good news, it lasts all day. I spend it all in the sun, despite the cold, because it still feels warm when it hits my skin. I just avoid the shade, my dog running happily ahead of me, enjoying the sun on her fur. I sit in the living room just as the sun starts...