London, needing bandaids

Back in London last night. Communication error saw me in my fourth hotel room in five nights back in Europe.

I am aching from different beds, walking shoes, carrying bags, and mostly from salt in wounds, waves lapping around the 12eme of Paris.

I have been doing okay but mostly because, in the brusque 3 star cocoon of Ibis, I am away from people who know me. Yesterday, in the comfort of a friend's sofa in Paris I realised I am brittle, bruised, stinging. I cannot, will not, tolerate intimacy.

I dreamt of the pillow turning into huge fluffy bears, I dreamt in vivid real colours that he was alive and I could say goodybe, I dreamt I called my mum. I woke confused: where had the pillows gone, and why would people say he was alive, when the papers - the Independent's obituary carefully folded in my book, so as not to crease the photo - say he is dead. I am haunted by his smile.

I think last night, you were driving circles around me.