prepare

 in fifteen minutes there is to be a telephone interview with the lawyer, the morning is cold. 

Sunlight catches the smoke and vapour climbing into the atmosphere from the neighbours's chimneys, rising and then falling as the heat is taken from them.

The rooms are cold, but there is a strange luxury in being able to open the balcony doors and the windows and experience the relatively warmer air from outside. At least this air is not significantly colder. 

The clock is ticking, that blue-cased clock with its electrical winder. It just works and works and ticks and tocks.

Now with only eight minutes to go, prepare for that telephone call.