Bob is out when I drop round, which is just about fucking typical. He said he’s going to be in after five, but in the whole time I’ve been buying weed off him, I’ve never known him to be in when he says he will be. You’d think I should know better by now.

So instead, I’m eyeballing his flat from across the street, cradling a coffee and half reading the paper. Two years ago, this place was brand new, and there was a palpable excitement from the overgrown Trustafarian in her late thirties as the shutters went up; this was going to be the one, the hot spot that everyone in West London came to – they were going to have couches, and papers, and plinky-plonk music that sounds like a Tibetan headache.

And for a while it was, the cool kids and fashionistas dropping in for an overpriced jolt of caffeine and to check each other out. But then a new place opened on Portobello just round the corner from Elgin Crescent, and this neglected corner of Golborne began to lapse back into disfavour. The crowds dripped away, the coffee got weaker, and the smile slowly fell off the face of Lamentia, or whatever the fuck her name was. Now she just sat there, half hiding behind the counter, embarrassed. This place would be closed in a month. I’d put money on it.

But in the meantime, it gives me somewhere warm and dry to stake out Bob’s flat until he comes back, even if the honk of whale song is getting on my tits. Rain flecks the window. Winter is here, the nights are short, wet and cold; and the only sensible thing to do is hole up and make sure you have enough puff to blot out the frost and boredom.