I remember with great clarity the origins of this comet fascination. It began when I was eight years old, reading "Moominland Midwinter" on a double-decker bus returning to our Bournemouth guest house during the famous summer heatwave of 1976.In the sunlight, just after we�d passed the shell house, the words in my book began to slow down until they crawled to a halt, and I drifted off to sleep. Have I awakened from that slumber yet? There are moments when I hope I have, and others when I long to be still in that dream. 
Don't we all wish for a chance to start anew from the same point sometimes?
Have I woken up yet? Sometimes I hope I have; other times I hope against all hope that I haven�t. Don�t we all sometimes wish to have another go from the same starting point�
Perhaps it's all a dream; maybe I never finished that book. I did, however, set out on another adventure with "Comet in Moominland," borrowed from Marie. Among all the Moomin divinations, amidst the oddball, enigmatic characters in fantastic landscapes of ice, cliffs, and fires, the comet shone the brightest. 
This comet became inexorably intertwined with The Star, suspected (by some) of being a comet, guiding the Magi on their arduous journey to the stable.
When I finally witnessed the true comet, I was well- prepared. Yet, no prophecy could have foretold or hinted at what lay ahead in the lead-up to that first sighting. The astronomers and astrologers did their best, but their words could only conjure up lacklustre images. Moreover, their messages reached me in broken fragments as I was then in a foreign land, surrounded by a language that only occasionally made sense to me.
It was 1997, 21 years after "Moominland Midwinter." Easter approached, and we boarded a train for the Baltic coast, settling into the Wars carriage to drink some beer and watch the awakening early spring world pass by. 
Going north, you are forever following the departing winter.
Memories drifted by, projected onto the barren landscape outside. Saturday football away days. Queues at the buffet for McEwan's and crisps after a goalless draw in South or West London, or on the South Coast.
In Sopot, we stayed in a hotel with a basement sauna, our attic room reminiscent of the long, shadowy roof space in "The Magician's Nephew." As twilight approached, we ventured out for a stroll. We gazed upwards expectantly, but the treasures of the heavens � the millions of stars, planets and galaxies � had yet to appear.
Along the beach, we paused a while to sit on a huge drift log heaved ashore by the winter storms. Up above, one by one, brightening by the second, celestial objects appeared in the violet hour sky. A planet�a star�a constellation� And, unmistakably, a heavenly body with a tail, for all the world as if drawn by a child.
This, then, is my proof that I am still dreaming on the upper deck of that bus and will awaken with Mam tapping my shoulder, "Kev�come on Kev... we're getting off in a minute..." Ah, the struggle of that initial moment of awakening; the blinking eyes; the slow realization; the attempt to grasp the fleeting remnants of a dream.
Now, I find myself wondering - if Mam's hand will soon rouse me, what dream will I awaken into? And where will it all end?