Letdown

An ex-military friend once told me about "the sads" - the experience, sometimes felt physically, that soldiers went through after a period of heightened adrenaline. I wouldn't say I was aware of yesterday as producing much visceral excitement, but it was a good, fruitful day in which I achieved something after working hard on it, a full day in which there were barely enough minutes to do all I wanted to. So I suppose there had to be a letdown, and there's not much worse than a letdown during lockdown.

There were flashes - a FaceTime chat on WhatsApp with my granddaughter; a wonderful photo sent by my cousin of him and me in bathing costumes (for that, dear reader, is what we called them) when I must have been about six. I had a vivid memory of that costume: it was red wool (wool!) and had been too big for me, so for maybe a couple of summers I'd worn it with a tuck round the middle. In this photo the tuck had clearly not long been let out, and there is a darker strip and a couple of folds in the wool as evidence. I laughed aloud at that.

Apart from that, the highlight of the day took place before I'd even had breakfast, when I came downstairs to see a tall phlox, nowhere near flowering yet, being blown almost horizontal by the gale. Two stalks already lay flattened and broken. I couldn't bear it, so after I'd started the bread machine going I was out there in the rain hammering stakes into the sodden ground and fixing wire round them and plant to hold it. I got wet. 

The rest of the day just passed. I don't like that feeling - that waiting for it to be dinnertime. We went for a walk down the West Bay and back, just like yesterday only this time wearing waterproof trousers. This photo is of the most appealing thing I saw - for some reason I'm very attracted to the rocks with the vibrant green weed over the pinky-fawn slopes of stone.

Maybe tomorrow will bring something better - a resignation, perhaps? And no, I'm not talking about me being resigned to the situation ...