I remembered the Saturday I turned up at my uncle's home and found him digging a hole to one side of the house. He grinned, hand on hoe, gloves covered with dry dirt, his old white polo shirt drenched in sweat.

"Digging a hole," he said, still grinning, by way of an explanation.

"I can see that," said I. "What's it for?"

"A pond. You know, for goldfish."

My first thought was that neither him nor his wife had the time to look after the garden, let alone maintain the health of goldfishes in a pond. They'd bought the property not too long ago, and most of the house still echoed, crying out to be filled with furniture. I supposed the pond was a priority.

I looked doubtfully at the hole in the ground, which resembled more like a dip in the slope on the hillside. My uncle wasn't exactly an accomplished handyman, but I guess determination yields results. Of a kind. Eventually.

This odd sliver of a memory slipped into my mind as my feet took me down a familiar back alley, the kind that exists only because two-storey housing rise on either side; their back doors, balconies, porches, and back gardens facing these forsaken lanes that only local residents are supposed to use.

Perhaps I am a local enough resident by now. Or is it because that I claim this as my home, therefore I belong here? When the women hang their laundry out in their balconies over the back streets, do they see me as a stranger? Or when the men mow their lawns and repair their cars? Does my body blend into the background of the landscape even if my eyes wander, my ears listen and my heart beats at a different rhythm to the soul of this place? I would be a travelling minstrel but for the lack of a harp.

Yet, it was walking by one of these desolate back gardens that made me think of my uncle and the grandiose dream of a fish pond in the yard of his suburban home, thousands of miles from here, many years ago. These unkempt, overgrown gardens will soon face the onslaught of a long winter; what can one strive for, when the flowers will wither like evaporating dreams?