A young person asked how I knew when a seedling was ready to leave the tray. I began to answer with what my hands would do, then realised that telling someone to feel the roots is not much help before their hands have learned. We looked at two plants together, one ready and one that could wait. She asked sensible questions I had stopped asking myself many years ago. Now I am thinking that experience can make an answer shorter than it ought to be. I have promised to show her again, but not to take the plants from her while she is trying. That last instruction is for me, my dear book. My fingers remain eager to finish other people's work.

My dear book, the morning was cool enough that I kept my wrapper around my shoulders while drinking kunu in the courtyard. My fingers were stiff, so I held the cup with both hands and let a grandchild open the little container I usually insist on opening myself. Later I touched the soil in a pot and it felt warm on top, cooler underneath. I still know that difference better than I know the buttons on this telephone. When I stood, my knees required their usual few patient moments. Then I walked to the gate. The stick came too, and earned its place for once instead of merely accompanying a respectable woman out of doors.

My granddaughter in Abuja apologised again for not visiting, and I surprised myself by feeling irritated before I felt affectionate. I do not want her to spend the whole call asking forgiveness for having a life. Yet I do want to see her, and perhaps my questions make the apology begin. I told her I missed her company, not her explanations, then asked what she had eaten. We spoke more easily after that. When the call ended I felt the missing plainly, a small sorrow with a particular face. I sat with it until somebody brought a child to show me a loose tooth. I was still missing her while admiring the tooth. There was room for both.