Pondering Pointlessly.

There were no interesting people in Ashbourne today. Even Gimli and his trusty wooden staff were conspicuous by their absence. I did see one person I knew, though: a rich neighbour who lives in a big house nearby. She was walking briskly ahead of me and I didn’t try to catch up with her because I don’t do that sort of thing anymore, not unless it’s somebody I find really interesting (and there weren’t any of those in Ashbourne today.)

When I was walking back to the car I saw her husband coming towards me. I said hello and mentioned that I’d just seen his wife going that way. ‘Oh good,’ he said, ‘because I’m going this way. As long as we’re going in different directions, that’s fine.’

It caused me to wonder yet again about that curious arrangement called marriage. You see, it seems to me that if marriage is to have any value, it must be like going through a door which only unlocks from the outside and then shutting it behind you. I know it’s possible to get divorced, and I know that divorce is easy these days, but since that’s the case I wonder whether there’s any point in getting married in the first place. Not that I would know, of course.

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And then I became curious to know what condemned people dream about during their last sleep before execution.

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And then I became curious to know whether Virginia Woolf knew when she took her final repose that she was going to commit suicide the next day.

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So many imponderables to ponder while the world around us falls slowly apart.