I sang rather strongly in church today and felt it in my chest before I felt it in my throat. There is one part I always enjoy, where the voices rise together, and I stood straight instead of resting back as I sometimes do. By the next verse I needed a quieter breath and let the others carry it. Mama says the choir can manage without my supervision. On the walk home my knees were slow but my upper body felt easier, as though I had been holding myself tightly all morning and only noticed after letting go. I sat in the parlour with water and did not put on the television immediately. My voice had done sufficient work for one morning.

My grandson asked me to describe the road to our village as it was when I was a boy, and I began with directions before he explained he wanted what I remembered seeing. That is harder. I remember where the lorry stopped and a woman selling food, but not the building behind her. I can give him routes through Ibadan without hesitation and cannot tell him the colour of the wall where I stood with my mother. He says I don't have to remember everything. True, but once I start telling a story I like the details to stand properly. I will ask my elder sister about that wall. She may remember something different, and then we shall have a discussion.

A young man stopped me near the junction and said I used to drive him to School. I remembered him after he mentioned where we picked him up, though I had been confidently calling him his brother's name. He laughed and told me I still looked the same. That is generous evidence, not accurate evidence, but I was pleased. He has a child of his own now. I felt proud hearing him speak, then strangely quiet when he went, because in my mind he was still the boy arriving with one shoe untied. I told Mama the story twice. She said she had heard the first report. Yes, but it was a happy meeting and deserved a full account.