Sun!

There is nothing more delightful when hearing about grey skies and the threat of miserable drizzle than lying out on the Third floor under a flawless blue sun-filled sky in a different city!

I woke relatively early and took my breakfast on the Third Floor and contemplated a swim.  Which in short order, allowing a reasonable amount of time for the muesli to settle, I did.  There is nothing more guaranteed to give a feeling of smug self-satisfaction than a swim taken early.  It allows one the luxury of extending haughty condescension to the sluggish majority of population still abed.  And muesli does taste better when eaten in the open air!

A few swims later it was time for lunch.  Which was taken in a pretentious little restaurant on the main road.  I was the only person in the place, but the warning never to frequent empty restaurants was not applicable to this one.  The meal was excellent: a small taster of gazpacho, then a first course of green beans and potatoes – simple but excellent.  The main course was carpaccio of bonito with a small leaf salad – light but tasty.  The sweet was fruit soup with chunks of watermelon.  A delight of a meal.

I have started reading “Abinger Harvest” by E M Forster.  This is the sort of book bought as a good idea which can lurk unnoticed on well-stocked shelves for years – as indeed this one has done – until, for reasons not clear, even to me, it comes to hand and stays there.

The book is a series of reviews, essays and fugitive poems that read very much as if they come from another age.  I think that it is the liberal fastidious tone of the writing which ages it, as much as the innocently naïf grudging acceptance of communism as a doctrine with a possible theory for a positive future.

The writing is facile in the best sense and it wears its learning lightly but there is always a sense in which Forster is speaking to his intellectual and social class, he is not inclusive – to put it mildly.  They are almost indecently moreish and I put the book down (to have a swim) reluctantly, but the sun was disappearing from the pool and there is a limit to human endurance!

The sun is setting and I still have not attempted the Opera request for the next season.  There is still time.  Just.

So much lying around all day has left me exhausted and longing for bed.

To which I think that I will go.