This is the boom

and this is the climb, you’ve twinned it, followed it up. Not euphoric, as you’d imagined. But perhaps it never is, when you’re in the thing. It can’t

last, though, you know. And so, you put it away, you save. It rains every day in England! Here you are, with your accounts and now your accountant, and you put things into bonds, into funds; you pound cost average. And you brace yourself for it. Hold cash in accounts, in a wallet, in a box beneath the bed. Gold – you start to consider. Seriously, something is always coming. Words embossed – into brass, into aluminium, you watch videos of men, pouring fire into buckets; the charred, white-hot remains. Money is just belief, reality is perception, so why not? Stow some there, some everywhere. Be careful, though, and save

you see others – Rach, Lou, they spend. They enjoy it. But is their current lifestyle peak truly a new floor? You don’t know. But you can weather an emergency, stress-test yourself, you will not be undone by a small thing. You hope. There’s only hope. Hope it’s enough to weather any bust until the swing back around when you can grab hold, pull up and start the climb again.