Just as a little update, Lyn’s bungalow in Charlton still sits empty. I go over there every few weeks, just to check on the place. It has been empty for months, which is surprising, because I would have thought the council would have moved someone in by now. I don’t hang around there long before continuing my trundle, of course, but today I noticed something which made me chuckle: back at uni, I used to occasionally go to campus discos dressed as a bunny. My costume was a black leotard and tights, plus a cheap pair of bunny ears and a white tail. I brought it down when I moved in with Lyn, but I hadn’t seen it in years. Thinking about it now, it baffles me that I ever got away with wearing that stuff; I doubt I could even get a leg into it these days.

This afternoon, however, outside Lyn’s place underneath the car shelter, amid the dirt, leaves, grime and rubbish, I saw the white bobtail I used to pin to my leotard. Smeg knows how it got there; it was probably thrown out when I moved. Yet the sight of it, there on the ground, brought back so many memories, making me frown and chuckle at exactly the same time. A fragment of a time long over; gathering dust outside a home once so full of music, but which now lies silent.