This morning upon awakening I was smitten by an email from Mrs. Conscience (as I now call her). Mrs C is a new but in many ways an old friend. She and I have a caring relationship animated by humour (mostly on my part if I may say so) and directness (mostly on her part). In addition to my old friend being stubborn (which of course she has repeatedly denied and then embellished with threats of abandoning our acquaintance), she is always attacking my seeming disquietude (to which objection once rendered I predictably end up crawling). She commands social regulation surpassing anything the “The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness (rules for the etiquette to be observed in the street, at table, in the ball room, evening party, and morning call; with full directions for polite correspondence, dress, conversation, manly exercises and accomplishments)” by Cecil B. Hartley (1860) would ever have imagined or prescribed.

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On April 27th last we returned home to Canada – slightly jarred and damaged – from our winter sojourn on Key Largo. The estate agent knicked our travel plans for the comng year because our former landlord decided the sell the place. Now after 4 months of getting settled in our new locale on terra firma (this time with a corporate landlord and the accommodating nicety of perpetual existence), adjusting to altered living and parking arrangements, familiarizing ourselves with the neighbourhood and the people, daily reliving the splendour of the view of the fertile meadow, the constant motion of the river and the thrill of glimpsing a hawk, a fox and a variety of birds, the sky is at last beginning to clear. The transition is now both up and down as we, like painters of our own work of art, complete the colours and intensity of the entirety of canvass.

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A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow designed for use in small rivers and shallow water.

Punting is boating in a punt; the punter propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole. Punts were originally built as cargo boats and as platforms for fowling and for fishing, such as angling; whereas now punting is boating for pleasure.

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The enthusiasm which precedes a dinner invitation from my erstwhile physician at his country estate in the nearby Village of Ashton is palpable. We accelerated and amplified the avidity by first having collected another of the dinner guests to accompany us to the rural resort. On the drive there we shared animated tales and reminders of past spirited events together. We were however not the only long-standing friends of the family in attendance. As I remarked at one point throughout the evening as we dined in the inexpressible summer ambience, a number of us have in the past dined together as far abroad as Rome, Sardegna, Montepulciano, Siesta Key and of course at our own residence in the Town of Almonte and also at private dinner parties in public venues in the city.

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Salut, Daniel!

Thank-you for your email, good to hear from you as always.

I sent that particular blog – “Old Hat” – to a number of my closer friends and acquaintances whom I wished to inform of our present travel plans as we shift from the usual simple Florida menu for the winter to new possibilities. I hadn’t anticipated that the blog would excite such interest in my personal profligacy! Re-opening my historical manoeuvres has unwittingly characterized me as a schemer!

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Over the space of the last 75 years (my entire life) I have owned 25-acres of vacant rural land, a small residential house in an old part of Town, a large residential house in a new part of Town,  a condominium and parking space in a trendy urban area and a designated heritage building with four units (two residential, two commercial). Though I’ve owned more real estate and had more headaches for doing so than most people I know, I am seldom if ever asked my opinion on the subject of real estate investment. If I were asked, my unadulterated thesis is this:  rent; don’t buy.

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For years I have been reading the history of England. In the process I’ve learned there is more than one book entitled the history of England. For example the latest tome I’m reading is by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 – 1859), “The History of England, from the Accession of James II”, five volumes of 1,000 pages each. The number of other independent authors addressing the same overall subject is too numerous to mention. Some have a parenthetical allusion to a particular reign of monarch; while one at least by Thomas Frederick Tout (1855 – 1929) is unqualified (though it covers England’s medieval period or Middle Ages in the 1200s).  Another dwells primarily upon the era of the Magna Carta during the same period. There is even the History of England in Verse (1876); or, if you prefer, the Oxford History of Britain.

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Really there is little that surpasses the excellence of a balmy summer breeze! Such is the atmosphere today.  After having spent a lifetime not having to bear deprivation, I am currently adapting myself to today’s economic reality. My erstwhile extravagance was predominantly the product of the lines of credit of every chartered bank of the Dominion of Canada (with an immodest measure of succour from the mortgage securities).

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As I sit here at my desk overlooking the green meadow and the windswept river, I am further enhanced by the indescribable fortuity of score selectivity from Apple Music. All my favourite tunes!

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