Today's Fear and Yesterday's Vision.

So, now that darkness has settled on the Shire and it isn’t bed time yet, what should I write about at the near-closing of another uneventful day?

My fear, I suppose. The fear of next week came dropping suddenly and powerfully into my mind today. Wednesday is the day for my cystogram examination. What will it show, I wonder. And then I’m scheduled for another trial without catheter procedure, the last of which being what sent me into a crisis of pain, fever, cold air blowers and oxygen masks if you remember. What will happen this time, I wonder. Will it all go swimmingly, or will it represent another of the false dawns which have characterised this whole sorry business going back to early January? Should I now lay on the storms-and-ships metaphors with a shovel? I don’t think so. I’ll do as I’m told and report the outcome here, assuming I’m able.

The only other notable thing about today was the fact that the flower heads are appearing on the wild garlic in The Hollow. In another week or two the steep, 15ft-high embankments will be draped in a carpet of nature’s white. It will look very beautiful.

But let’s go back a couple of days to what I saw when I took a walk up the lane. There was a young Chinese woman standing alone and apparently unoccupied in the car park of the village hall. She had the air of a vision about her because young Chinese women are not in the habit of frequenting the Shire. I’ve only ever seen one other in the twelve years I’ve lived here.

I thought of approaching her and asking who she was, but decided against it. It occurred to me that she might reply with an enigmatic message which I would assume was being channelled from some denizen of a dark place; for who better to convey such a missive than a young Chinese woman with long black hair? And then I considered that she might say nothing, but confine herself to an enigmatic stare, the power of which might set me trembling uncontrollably. Or maybe she would simply vanish and reduce my mind to a state resembling festering custard. (It has been known.) And then I wondered whether I might have died and nobody had told me yet, and that the young Chinese woman might be none other than the priestess come all the way from Sydney to attend my memorial service. Maybe she was just early and was waiting for the other three people to turn up.

I decided that the most judicious course of action was to walk on, and so I did. And the weather has been beautiful and summery again today.