The new experience involves a lot of preparation … new clothes, a physical examination, learning how to get to school plus the adjustment to taking or buying one’s lunch, getting to know a teacher and playing new games with a playgroundful of children.

The Garda van was parked in the yard, and the two young Gards were struggling to get the rocking-stool out of the back.

the teeterings of the financial market

He squinted through frozen lashes, trying to make better sense of the valley beneath him, a gouge running east to west, so deep and narrow he could only see the bottom when they passed directly overhead.