on-wend

In 1996 or 7ish I remember coming back from visiting parents over the spring-eggtide holidays to find snow all over Arthur's Seat in the middle of April. This year it's already summer in the middle of April, featuring wasps, skin-burning sun-heat and people sitting on tables outside pubs drinking cider. The trees have yet to grow their shading leaves but the sun is still low enough for there always to be a shady side of the street as long as one avoids walking a northish-southish route at the relative geographic noon. Yesterday turned out to be some sort of local holiday thing (irrelevant at my workplace (which ignores such things) except to people who travel in by bus) which might have accounted for the feeling of emptiness in the office throughout the day and the almost complete absence of all but five people on this half of my floor by half-past four. The thought of leaving nice and early and being out and about in the slightly less oppressive heat of the late afternoon was tempting but things have to be done and doing them today frees up tomorrow's late afternoon when everyone should be back at school and work and won't be out blocking the pavements and pissing against trees at the edge of the Meadows after drinking too much cider. On the way home I saw a bottle-cap amongst some cobbles labelled "JACQUES cider" which seems to be taking this cider-as-a-sophisticated-drink-rather-than-cheap-tramp-fuel a little bit too far along a path potentially ending in la foudre blanche.