The Ramblings of an Ageing Mind.

I was watching the aforementioned Ellie Taylor on a TV show earlier, and something occurred to me about my nature. Whenever I see a particularly attractive young woman (and I don’t just mean a pretty face; my perception of ‘attractive’ is rather wider than that) I still feel the stirrings of the same old instinct that’s been with me since the age of around 12. It was dangerous when I was young and it’s pointless now that I’m growing long in the tooth, and yet I can’t find the means to consign it to the farthest reaches of the cosmos where it belongs. All I can do is grit my teeth and put up with the frustration.

On a wholly different tack, I broke something I was fond of in the garden today. It saddened me and led me to take stock of everything else in the garden, both natural and constructed, whereupon I was suddenly consumed with the notion that everything in my world is breaking down and rotting away. This is not unrealistic, of course, and it’s all a matter of perception anyway. Have I not consistently averred that perception is the whole of the life experience?

These are the thoughts which pass through a beleaguered mind as I stride, shuffle or stumble along the multifaceted road we call life, especially now that I’ve had most of what I’m going to get this time around. I must try to find that sense of humour I used to have. I’m sure it’s buried deep in a pocket somewhere around here.

The day has been warm and settled, and now I have a beetle for company in my office. Did I say I like beetles?

I know, I know… I should be commenting on the situation in Israel, the persistent lurking of Trump in the political shadows, and the high-handed attitude the Establishment takes to the individual, but I can’t be bothered.

(I feel inclined to add, however, that the Vittoria cherry vine tomatoes which I obtained at some not inconsiderable expense from Sainsbury’s this week are splendidly tasty.)

And now it’s off to read more of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Miss Mary Katherine Blackwood is delightfully loopy in precisely the way that I can easily understand.