We conducted a purge of our living environment today. Yesterday the household was in a dreary trough brought on by a bout of what turned out to be a 24-hour flu bug. Once the debilitating affliction was observed to have passed, as an act of revitalization we proceeded to refresh our residence, whatever admitted to routine cleansing, the sheets, the bath towels, the dishes, etc. The warm outside temperatures and bracing winds afforded the occasion to swing wide the apartment windows to allow the place to breath. The billowing sheers told the story.  And the yellow sunlight flecked upon the walls.

Although the invalid had recuperated enough to take nourishment, he hadn’t the strength to bicycle in the springtime sunshine. I however was undeterred. The cerulean skies beckoned me. The next hour was an unhurried ride along Country Street, across the highway onto the Rae Road, down the Eighth Concession, detouring around Heather Crescent, back onto the Eighth Concession and then sailing home downhill practically all the way from the Town Hall to our apartment building. Along the way I had stopped several times to capture photographic views of the passing pastoral landscape, pleasant enough though naturally not yet verdant.

Thus reinvigorated by my modest exercise and fresh air it was the work of but a moment to entice me to an afternoon spin in my automobile.  My vagabond jaunt took me as usual to my elderly mother’s house for a filial visitation. There we chatted about recent ancestral investigations which she twice reiterated wistfully would have caught the fancy of my late father.  Privately I mused that all the time the evidence had been there, buried in dusty basement files, only to be revived after my father’s death to reveal the advantage of internet browsing and collation of information from the unanticipated reaches of Alberta where our distant relatives lately discovered my own blog collection of material.

As I made my languorous way homewards, I plugged in the USB and recalled my favourite music from the 1960s.  How long ago were those halcyon times! My youthful days were carefree hopes and blissful aspirations which I have to admit have unfolded with corresponding flourish.