Not every day on Key Largo is abuzz with fieriness. Today was one such day. It was instead characterized by an uncertain platitude if I may call it that. Yet it would be misleading to propose that today ought to have been otherwise or that the day was in any material respect wanting. Most certainly it was not. I liken the day instead to a commonplace work day; that is, attending to business, getting things done. Granted this is a small compliment given my present circumstances which on the face oblige me to no more employment than slicing my apple for breakfast and afterwards deciding whether to swim in the pool or in the sea, whether to float face up or face down, whether to cycle 4 or 8 Kms (I actually did 6.86 Kms) and whether to have a half or a whole squeezed lemon with my afternoon chilled tea.

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WISHY-WASHY
Any beverage too weak. Over-watered spirits.

“His food the land-crab, lizard, or the frog;
His drink a wish-wash of six-water grog.”

Excerpt From
The Sailor’s Word-Book: An alphabetical digest of nautical terms, including some more especially military and scientific, but useful to seamen; as well as archaisms of early voyagers, etc.

By the late
Admiral W. H. Smyth, K.S.F., D.C.L., &c.
Revised for the press by Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, K.C.B., &c. &c.

LONDON:
BLACKIE AND SON, PATERNOSTER ROW;
AND GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH
1867

Lucem Libris Disseminamus

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For reasons I do not fully understand (except bluntly to control those who may surreptitiously infiltrate the gated community) we have been told by the estate agency to have any delivery directed to the office of the estate agent rather than directly to ourselves at the townhouse. It is both an inconvenience and a convenience because while having to persistently track the delivery to the estate agency we are spared the insufferable obligation to remain in the townhouse all day awaiting the doorbell to ring (assuming one must sign for receipt).

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Forgive me if you will the reporting of what is nothing but trifling details. It would please me rather to engage in the account of something of moment and interest. And while I don’t personally think that apart from Donald J. Trump and Thomas Babington Macaulay’s History of England from the Accession of James II there is anything which so intrinsically captures the mind of those who are innately inquisitive I accept that my biographical tedium is unlikely competition. Having said that the dreary enterprise evokes within me what is the substantive function of this amateur literary medium; that is, to fulfill my obligation to do so. Now I know that is turning the conversation on its head – rather like what my dear late mother sometimes said, “Because I say so!” – but quite honestly it abbreviates any other more dynamic explanation.

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While lying in bed this morning following an uncommonly profitable overnight sleep and while listening to the equally uncommon rain upon the roof of the townhouse, I fashioned a new elucidation of the quip “Why did the chicken cross the road?”  I am that chicken, the coward, the one without the nerve to undertake a dangerous situation.

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We briefly ventured off the property this morning. I felt an urgency to determine the precise location of Cindy’s Hair Place. Yesterday afternoon I had made an on-line appointment for a “Short Haircut – Unisex” with “Cindy D (organizer)” or so the Message I subsequently received indicates. The venue we discovered is 0.3 miles (7 min walk) from here.  We drove.  Basically we crossed the road. At this southern end of Key Largo the frequency of commercial establishments is much diminished. Instead there are hotels, resorts and gated communities. Predominantly throughout Key Largo the businesses – except standard grocery stores and big box stores – appear to be sole proprietorships or mom-and-pop styles of trade. As a former rural business owner I am accustomed to that medium of commerce; and, in fact I prefer it in many ways especially for personal goods or services. Plus the parking on these obscure business sites has not the congested traffic one encounters in season at the malls.

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Charles Reginald Gamble (known to his friends and clients as “Reg”) was one of the first people whom I met when I arrived in Almonte in June of 1976.  He visited his close friend and my new employer, Michael J. Galligan QC, at the latter’s home on Church Street not far on the same street from where Reg and his wife Gail lived atop the funeral home then called Gamble & Comba in the erstwhile Galbraith mansion.

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There are admittedly many marvels of life. Those of mine indisputably include swimming in the sea as I did earlier today. Although the swimming pool is a mere 100 yards from where I now sit, the allure of the sea is for me irresistible. It does however oblige me to mount my tricycle and pedal along the shaded laneway approximately 0.5 Km to where there is a white stone pathway between the row of townhouses bordering the sea enabling me to penetrate to the small private beach.

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This morning, as is my tradition, I opened my computer to check for overnight email. There was one from a funeral home in my hometown (I follow the obituaries), another from the Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot (I subscribe to the list of latest products) and one from a friend, Michael Tweedie, whom I have known since the late 1960s. Michael is a long-standing friend.

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Winter has arrived on Key Largo. The forecast high today is 79°F. The locals are wearing long-sleeved shirts and windbreakers. Similar Baltic weather is predicted for the upcoming week. We turned off the A/C and opened the windows. The northeast breeze from across the North Atlantic Ocean was marvellous! My bedroom windows are louvered. After morning ablutions and application of soothing cream, I sat in my bedroom on the thatched vanilla-coloured chair apathetically preparing to dress myself in a wintry costume (a cotton shirt to replace the linen one). While doing so I stared at the shimmering sunlight and shadow upon the carpeted floor and listened to the rotating hum of the ceiling fan before gathering myself to descend to the larder.

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