It isn’t every day that invites the lethargy and revitalization of an afternoon retreat.  But today is one of those days.  The weather is windy and cool. The sea and the sky are grey. And I’ve accomplished what for me are the routine essentials of daily living; namely, getting out of bed before nine o’clock in the morning, undertaking the usual ablutions and refreshment of clothing, bicycle ride and car wash.  Sadly perhaps that’s it.  And to be honest I say so without apology or regret.  In fact if I were to outline to anyone of my age a favourable way to spend one’s day, I cannot think of any manner more ideal – other than communion of one sort or another with one’s family or friends, reading a good book, performing a hobby or playing the piano.  All of which is to say that I acknowledge the limitation of my daily enterprise but I am willing to accept that others have a far more expansive regime than I.

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It’s Sunday morning.  Traditionally a time for leisure and thoughtful repose.  Thankfully, in spite of having gone to bed late last night, I awoke before nine o’clock this morning.  Immediately I attacked a technical computer problem which is what kept me going until after midnight. I got it working in part, then abandonded the ambition in the interest of preserving my sanity and to acknowledge the lack of imperative.  Some things really don’t matter.

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One of the advantages of having recurringly visited Hilton Head Island, SC over the past 20 years is that we have acquired – albeit unwittingly – an estimable knowledge of the place. Specifically a grasp of what is within the proximity of Sea Pines where we have perched during our sojourns here. Historically I might have further qualified the acquaintance as being within cycling distance of our habitat for that is normally how we have insinuated the environment. This ambient limitation has however noticeably expanded; which is to say, the variance of my cycling communication has dwindled. This hindrance has in turn arisen by reason of nothing more astonishing than the effluxion of time and predictable human decomposition. While I generally snap my fingers at this predominantly unattractive evolution, I accept too that the constraint is real and not easily overcome. A degree of accommodation is required.

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Very often we hear it spoken disparagingly of lobbyists. No doubt it is as much a collateral indignation of popular conversation as defence practice is of the legal community.  Either way it is equally clear that both viewpoints are sustainable. It is a useful reminder that writing to one’s legislative member, urging a certain way to vote (whether for climate change or gun control for example) is lobbying.

Lobbyists communicate the views of special interest groups to lawmakers, including members of Congress. They aim to influence how lawmakers write or vote on legislation related to particular issues—immigrant rights, health insurance, clean energy, housing development, transportation, and many others.

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Things today couldn’t have got off to a better start. Nor was it only the vindication of having arisen before eight o’clock this morning that assured the magnificent perfectly brilliant day wasn’t already half-spent. The purification rather was a massage of my aching feet and rigid lower limbs. I almost hesitate to mention the euphoria that arose because its sounds so common and uncommon in the same breath. Little do we estimate the abuse our stilts and pads take every living day. They are without a doubt the long suffering units of our anatomy. If any other part of our corpus were subject to such perpetual abuse I am quite certain there’d be at least some recognition or evidence of the endurance. But until those quarters in the nether reaches are treated to the theurgy of a massage we otherwise live in not-so-blissful ignorance.

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It has to be one of the things we so enjoy about Hilton Head Island that it has acquired a familial tone to it.  We’re about as well acquainted as one may expect to be with our estate agent (whom we have known for well over a decade and whom we find to be singularly helpful and completely trustworthy); we’ve developed neighbourhood familiarity at a local beanery; we know our way about our preferred areas of the island without having to rely upon GPS; we recognize the inevitable changes and improvements (as well as confessing the aging of both ourselves and certain of our environment); and, most significantly we rejoice in being back, being home among steady and stimulating personalities and soul-stirring landscape.

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Sir James Murray’s estimate that the dictionary would be completed by 1891 proved to be wildly optimistic; it was not until 1928, well after his death, that final volume was published. The last printed edition of the OED was published in twenty volumes in 1989 and is now only available to subscribers electronically, a medium which allows for almost instantaneous updates and amendments.

Citations and definitions of each word were laboriously transferred on to slips of paper, around three tons worth by his death, from which they were eventually distilled into entries for the dictionary. To speed the process up Murray sent an Appeal for Readers around the Anglophone world asking for volunteers to supply him with suitable quotations illustrating how various English words were used over the centuries. Respondents were asked to avoid concordances of the Bible, Shakespeare, and Edmund Burke as they had already been trawled through. One of the most prolific postal contributors was William Chester Minor, a murderer staying at Her Majesty’s pleasure at Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane, who sent in over 12,000 citations.

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Hilton Head Island is part of the Lowcountry region in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It’s known for Atlantic Ocean beaches and golf courses. The Harbour Town Lighthouse and Museum marks the southwest tip. The Coastal Discovery Museum features heritage buildings, trees and themed gardens. Between the island and mainland, the Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge salt marsh hosts deer, alligators and birds.

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I can think of no greater compliment to currency than to speak dismissively of it as just another day. Indeed by way of less literary interpretation it is in my experience not uncommon that, no matter where on earth one happens to be at the moment, eventually being there is favourably expressed as just another day (but always with the added ingredient that the very mundanity of the observation is what preserves its appeal). Human nature is thus at its very best terribly accommodating. The wordly stimulus is the not insignificant insinuation that, though short of spiritual elevation, the immediate circumstance is heartening, perhaps even surmounting physical restriction or evolution. All told just another day is expressive of contentment. I’m having one of those days, just another day.

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We at last made it to a car wash.  The residents of Hilton Head Island are well known for their adherence to vehicular maintenance. This is a social prejudice nurtured by a national history of car worship, an apostasy which I admit to embracing. Withdrawal from the perils of winter certainly helps to promote the standards of automotive cleanliness and cosmetics. Yesterday we saw a lumbering Rolls Royce wending about a traffic circle on Lighthouse Road near Harbour Town golf links.

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