The addictive bewitchment of travel – its hued romanticism, the memorable enchantment of windswept beaches and thatched rooftop restaurants on open jagged rock by the sea, sandy passages wending along the frothing shore of an endless ocean, a distant horizon to nowhere and everywhere – these images of once boundless fortuity have begun to dissolve, evoking a fabric of reality more crucial for its estrangement from native land and substance. The enthusiasm of getting there is superseded by the peril of leaving. The inevitability of recognition exceeds the myth of discovery. The lonely avenues of circus entertainment, void of the hysteria of imagination and performance, retreat to the plain ambition of temporary diversity, its ferris wheels and rotating gondolas suspended in time.

The irrepressible suitcase has outlasted its commissions, lately stored in the closet beneath a pile of handbags once intended for a journey without illness or impairment. Instead now I am clad in 29″ trousers with a pleated front and cuffs, an undergarment T-shirt, a long-sleeved button-down Oxford, a Viyella woollen cardigan and the Bulova pocket watch with its frugal chain and nimble clasps (a modest mastery of accessory from Ponce Inlet I never thought to exhort). In another closet – the one we thought destined to inutility – hangs a parade of winter clothing, including a sheepskin coat, a duffle coat, 2 dress coats and sundry others, silk scarves and hats as well as a racoon hat of incalculable justification in the freezing cold.

Then there are the colours and the flavours, the rich embodiment of artistry as in an oil painting. The mere transition of seasons – so often extolled to the point of redundancy or commonality – but never losing its remarkable appeal. The identity of home territory exhibited so manifestly from the drawing room window.

The philosophy of home is as much an expedition, the sorcerer in search of truth and profundity. Identity is a native resonance. Like most things innate its projection is natural and not alarming; and, like most things innate, the fibre runs deep, from beneath the snow covered fields, from below the icy surface of the river. Yet the revelation is tied to Nature; and, the disparate worlds of thought must await alignment with growth and heritage.