Helen, The Ice House

I stopped near the Ice House on Coal Harbour Pier, with fifteen minutes or so to spare before heading to pick up the wean. I met one of the women who run the shop and talked to her about the seals that hang out nearby, for the scraps they often get thrown, which I'd photographed a few times. A gang of about seven, she reckons, and apparently they've been scarce of late, though there's a new (but quite large) young one I saw the other week, a newish recruit. I told her a photo I took of the seals has now been used as the cover of a newly published anthology, Taking the Plunge. But I'm only one of thousands who've photographed these creatures over the years.

With the wean in the car, conversation turned to the recent storm, and the fiercer ones that stalk the American plains. He remembered people have rooms to shelter in, 'the attic.' No, wrong direction, but an understandable mistake, given that our flat doesn't have either basement or attic.