What day is it again?

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The day woke, stretched, then barged out of its stable door and galloped off into the horizon with all the wild determination of an unbroken pony, never to be seen again. Which is a very mannered and strained way of saying: I don’t know where the time went.

I look up and it is six-thirty and the gales are coming in on the fag-end of hurricane Katia and the sky is the colour of pigeons and THERE IS NO BLOG.

I eat some cockles for strength.

Then I rush out to take some photographs and the battery dies. Which is really annoying because there are some shafts of artistic amber light and some new violas.

I blame it on some kind of cognitive slippage. This sounds rather professional and technical, but is in fact something I just made up to avoid saying stupid in the head. When my alarm went off first thing, I was convinced it was Sunday. I went on thinking it was Sunday for some time. I was in a state of deep denial about the Mondayness of Monday.

I had logistics to deal with. I had to make arrangements, and do some proofing and editing for The Younger Brother. After a while, I rang him up.

‘You know that good school you went to?’ I said. ‘Did they not teach you that you start a sentence with a capital letter?’

This is the kind of thing I say when I am not sure which day of the week it is.

He mumbled a bit, sheepishly. ‘The age of email,’ he said. ‘Texting. You know. Things slip.’

‘Is it a hippie thing?’ I said, wondering if capital letters considered a surrender to evil corporate forces. Or something.

‘Yes,’ he shouted. ‘It’s a hippie thing.’

‘That’s all right then, I said, correcting and correcting.

There were errands to run and things to think about which I would rather not think about. In a moment of defiance, I went and bought a damson tree.

Then it was work, think, work, fret, work, ponder, work, work, work. Nothing goes fast enough. Thirty days, thirty days.

No wonder it is suddenly half-past six and I do not know what my name is.

 

Here are some quick pictures from yesterday, on account of the dead camera:

Herself:

I did at least manage to take an emergency snap of the hill, as the battery flashed furious red at me, so you can see the really quite extraordinary light. Oh Scotland, I sometimes think in the manner of the ambassador and the Ferrero Rocher, with all this beauty you are really spoiling us:

Sky black as pitch now, and a sinister little lull in the wind. It’s the moment in the films when the hero says: it’s quiet in here; it’s too quiet. The old lady is about to blow. The Pidge and I are holding onto our metaphorical hats. (Obviously metaphorical. Even I am not nuts enough to make my dog wear a hat.)

PS. Just looked up cognitive slippage, and it actually is a thing. Rather worryingly, it is associated with severe mental disorders. My poor brain.