Half nine round the block

Twenty minutes, the same route, left at the corner and down past the church and back up the other side, the one scheduled part of your day that is not for anybody.

It began in August as something to do with a puppy who would not settle, and has become the fixed point of the day, the thing you would be genuinely put out to miss. Danny comes about half the time and when he does you mostly do not talk. You have noticed you defend it, to the point of working out whether a dinner at eight would get you back in time for a loop of pavement you could have walked at eleven.