Quite a Sebaldian day. On a mission across town to see a friend, went into the grim building in which he works, up the lift, knocked on the door of his office. “Come in” only to be confronted by a room full of hand made shoes, some very elaborate. Baffling. A seriously pale woman emerged from behind some sheleves, asked me if I was OK, I explained that I was looking for Mick, had he left? She said that I had got the wrong floor, he was directly above. As I went back along the corridor, she called me back, “Are you Jonathan Swain, did you ever live at 55 Vere Rd?”, “No” “That’s odd, I lived there for about five years, we were getting mail delivered with your name all the time, no-one ever collected it. It’s probably still there.” she wrote the address down on the back of a card. Curiously when I mentioned this incident to Mick later, he looked at the photograph and said that he had actually met ‘Max’ Sebald whilst paddling in the sea at Clacton.
