Lost time

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Oh, I was going to write you a blog today. After all the extraordinarily generous comments of yesterday from the Dear Readers, it was the least you deserved. I had to go on the train, and had a nice seat with a table, and silence de glace for an hour and a quarter each way, and I read the papers, and thought thoughts, and even made notes in a special notebook, so that I should have something marvellous for today’s post.

I thought: I shall tell them this fascinating thing, and that buried nugget; I shall report this astonishing quote, and that obscure story. I was going to come back to the world. And, on top of that, I had all kinds of meditations on old friendship, and variations on universal verities, and, my dears, the very contemplation of life itself, and what it’s all about, Alfie. It was a thing of glory, in the privacy of my own little head.

And then the hours galloped away from me like an unbroken pony. Coming back to the family from the train was a thing, actually, of utter enchantment. The three-year-old was singing many songs, some of which she had made up herself; the nine-year-old was doing multiplication and knitting; the twelve-year-old Godson was revising for his history exam, and telling us the entire story of The Battle of Hastings.

‘Yes, yes, ‘ I shouted; ‘discipline, that’s what won it for the Normans.’ He laughed a lot. There are times when he finds me very funny, most usually when I am saying something I consider rather serious. I take it where I can get it. If I can make a twelve year old boy laugh, I mostly think my work is done.

All of which is a long way of saying: there is not much blog after all. And I must apologise for that. I wish I could say the dog ate my homework, but of course The Pigeon is too immaculate for that.

 

Needless to say: no camera today, because no time. Here is a quick selection of pictures from the last few days, because you must have something to gaze at.

When I was choosing this picture of The Pigeon, the two smallest cousins gathered round, stared at it, and said, in unison, with a dying fall: Oh, oh, the little Pigeon face. Could not have put it better myself:

It is late, and I don't want to fall into sentiment, but goodness you were generous and touching with your comments on yesterday's post; and I thank you all for them. People like to be snotty about the blogosphere, but in its finest incarnation, it can act like a wondrous shot in the arm. It is not what I expected would happen to me here, and it feels like a most delightful gift.