The day – not unlike the weather – was a blur.  As for the weather it was snowy and grey so not at all incompatible with the season.  Nor I suppose was the day itself inharmonious. The day was characterized by that notable quality of goodwill which so demonstrably distinguishes Christmas and Chanukah from other times of the year but was in other respects an indistict collection of impressions and personalities. Even an unpredicted event. But like the melodies of Jingle Bells and Good King Wenceslas it was impossible to escape the unifying zeal of the currency.

The haze of the day was augmented in particular by the unparalleled number of yarns I spun with others some of whom I only met for the first time. Add to this fortuity the benefit of rewarding acquaintance and you begin to capture the allure of affairs though partly obscure. Why it is so I shall never know but I am always astonished to discover there are in this often times wretched world exceeding pleasant people! I imagine this ungenerous innuendo speaks sadly to my personal limitation or unblemished anxiety but it nonetheless enlivens me every time to be thus unwittingly contradicted.

The peculiarity of the confabs today – that is, apart from a ripping midmorning scheduled FaceTime with an ancient undergraduate friend – was their occurrence in our subterranean garage where I had initially undertaken an improving late morning tricycle ride (one which I repeatedly interrupted). For the time being I have adopted the garage as our putative coffee house. It is indisputably though by small compliment the most deliberate and uncalculated avenue of camaraderie. Like any coffee house of worthy esteem, the garage proves to be a fluid channel for the latest intelligence much of which I can unhesitatingly observe was hot off the press. Indeed the very unremarkable nature of the collusions has afforded commensurately wholesome and delectable flavour to the conventions. We discussed for example names, apartment numbers, places of origin and emails. There were overviews of communal living (many of our number have recently downsized). There were pardonable slights and slurs (not all ingredients are saccharin). And many commendations. Some clarification and imagination even. The usual unqualified invitations to further communion followed naturally. And the emanation of that inexplicable breeziness of being a member of the flock.

And just as I was recovering my balance and bringing myself back to the sturdiness of habit and routine (which is to say a restorative outing in my vehicle to the car wash), news of arrival of an article from the United States of America through the inexpressibly precise apparatus of Borderfree arose on my dashboard. The dispatch, while it didn’t curtail my initial cathartic ambition, nonetheless hastened my return. And well it should have.  The article – one to which I had contributed nothing short of precision and acuity – proved to be exactly as ordered and bargained for. I could not have been more pleased. The fortune is an approbation not only of the retailer but most importantly of the on-line purchase, payment and delivery process.

From this beguiling absorption it was impossible fully to emerge without the favour of a chilled coffee and an afternoon plate at my desk. And when only just on the edge of the shore was I once again happily set adrift by the arrival of my latest communication from England. Together with a handful of Christmas cards. Now by way of reward for endurance of the complications of this day I shall retire to consider my learned friend’s contribution to the Superior Court of Justice (the preliminary details of which have already captured my keenest interest).