Winter is over! Today following a 3-day interlude of featureless grey clouds and blustery northern winds during which I wore a jacket and white socks while tricycling and avoided swimming in either the pool or the sea, the ambient temperature beneath clear blue sky rose from a frigid 53ºF this morning to a tolerable 69ºF by mid-afternoon. Poolside (where the sheltered air was warmer still) we lounged in the glaring yellow sunshine inhibited only by bathing suits and sunscreen.  As my late mother (God bless her) was wont to observe, “What’s not to like!!”  It was a declarative statement, nothing interrogatory about it. Today I find myself soaring to a similar disposition; what Bertie Wooster gleefully described as boomps-a-daisy.

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One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear. Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders of his spiritual guide and to the example of many persons of higher station than himself, whom he saw at that moment in Court. Two only of the Merry Boys, as they were called, were convicted: the worst criminals escaped; and the Chief justice indignantly told the jurymen that the guilt of the public ruin lay at their door.

Excerpt From
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 – 1859),
“The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3 (1689 – 1702)

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Something celestial is there about a salty breeze ripping across the turquoise sea surrounding the Florida Keys on a breathtakingly clear and dry, sunny day. The empyrean vault over the slender peninsula of white coral reef that is the backbone of the Florida keys magnified the blessedly fresh air of the blustery wind today. I am so pleased to have vanquished my morning indolence at table amid large (and exceedingly welcome) cups of strong black coffee and (likewise divine) fattened portions of Everything bagel with cream cheese and lox while fixedly poring over the latest discombobulation of Apple and all things “i”.

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Mentor: A person, especially an experienced older person, who provides personal or professional guidance.

“A mentor who, because he is detached and disinterested, can hold up a mirror to us.”  P. W. Keve

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Early this morning a long-standing friend from Toronto, Ontario (Canada) emailed me to quip (at my expense) about my nonstop reference here on Key Largo, Florida (USA) to what she suggested I call the “azure sky and golden sunshine”.  She was right to do so. I crawl in response to the asseveration. Today was another such day; viz., clear blue sky and burnishing yellow rays.

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It is said that the seasoned traveller is he who, in the face of unanticipated difficulty, while perhaps not rising above it, can nonetheless take it in his stride.  The implication being that when travelling stuff happens; and that the most quick-witted among us learns how to step around it or through it without being miffed. Rather like the way we’d prefer to imagine living the most productive life if you will.

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The day started passably well. Although I had gone to bed approaching midnight last evening, I surprised myself this morning to remove of a sudden my sleep mask only minutes after 8:00 o’clock. These days I consider that a respectable hour to awaken. As I lay momentarily inert under the duvet, adjusting to the brightness of the yellow bedroom and the critical reality of another day, wondering whether I would reposition the sleep mask over my eyes, I could see through the bottom of the window blind that it was a sunny day. I set upon getting up. The elevation of my corpulent body was not without its effort.  These days nothing is without its effort.  Everything creaks and strains under the most inconsequential motivation.

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It is an odd inclination that many of us appear to share; namely, the proclivity upon reaching a destination to get on one’s horse and to ride off in all directions. The putative desideratum seems to spring from the urge to consume everything possible for fear of starvation or other metaphorical inadequacy. I have concluded that the violation stimulated by this anxiety is ignorance of what is before one’s eyes.

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Just as there is no ship to take you away from yourself (“and you travel the suburbs of your own mind”), seemingly there is no escaping life’s daily annoyances howsoever remotely anchored. Now with the benefit of near-instant communication by email and Message, the sometimes unwelcome news from home reaches us wherever we’re moored. The complaint is assuaged by the philosophic knowledge that, with a degree of application and good intention, things may be sorted out. In the end the greatest disruption of one’s universal agenda is likely confined to a temporary nuisance or momentary interference with sun bathing. Neither of which is assured to attract any sympathy.

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Since I was 18 years old (when in 1967 I attended undergraduate studies at Glendon Hall on Bayview Avenue in Toronto, Ontario) I recall ritually cycling on Sunday mornings whenever possible. The occasions were likely unwittingly prompted by a gentleman friend of my sister.  He introduced me to a Garlatti Campagnolo 21-speed racing bicycle. The bike is now vintage but when I bought it from Foster & Byles on Bank Street, Ottawa it was considered state-of-the-art. My summer cycling habit in Ottawa, Ontario (where I lived at the time with my parents) predominantly focussed upon the Ottawa River Parkway and the nearby Gatineau Hills. There was a seemingly endless trail of paved bicycle paths with equally magnificent vistas. It was nothing for me to bicycle 100 miles per week.

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