i wonder if there is anything open for dinner today. quite unlikely, so it's probably not worth the trek out in the snow. but it's the first time in days i've had any appetite at all and i want to eat while i still feel like it. have been lying in bed and not wanting to have to dress to go out again and would throw something together at home if there was anything to be thrown together, but there isn't much besides ochazuke or udon, and anyway the kitchen is full of people who have turned up from goodness knows where, for they certainly don't live in this building, not all of them at any rate. the whole corridor is suffused with a dreadful pungent mist like the backstreets onto which a chinese restaurant kitchen opens - but there is no smoke detector in the kitchen, i don't think, or at least i don't remember there being one, nor have set one off before. von (who is working too furiously to go to dinner) says i could go and tell them off, but i can't possibly go and do that in my nightie, and if i'm getting dressed i might as well go out. bother.