I am with my mother and uncle, we are going to the galleries, exploring the old mills, wandering round the ostentatious Victorian brick buildings lining the streets. We view the Hockney exhibition, rascally and bright and vivacious. We eat carrot cake in the bookshop cafe in the old wool exchange; sit looking out over the balcony discussing Corinthian capitals and gerrymandering and Trump. All conversations lead to Trump, inevitably. My uncle buys a book about the apostles. I buy No Logo by Naomi Klein.
We spy opportunities for photographs on the backstreets, but the sky is grey and the lighting flat; then we move away and the sun comes out and the shadows leap. We climb a cobbled hill and my mum says her head is "bleugh", she's not taken her medication, we feel selfish and tell her to go at her own pace, everything is OK. We walk past white girls gossiping on red bricks walls, unemployed white men gobbing on the floor, Asian kids playing with tennis balls in the shade. A group of Asian lads come up to us to ask how we're doing, to shake our hands, to wish us a happy Eid. We had planned to find a good spot for curry but Mum needs her medication and I'm beat from work and so we turn instead for home.
Winding in through the suburbs of High Green and Grenoside and Hillsborough I see the Hallamshire rising out of the trees on the hill in the distance, and I feel that bittersweet sadness of returning home. Work first thing tomorrow. Saying goodbyes to family. Darkness drawing in. But no escaping into whisky glasses or spliff smoke; stand instead inside the sadness, let the lonely wolf of my heart howl.
Another day down. Tick it off. Find strength in this, and carry on.
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