I cannot recall feeling so censurable about having nothing to do.  It’s not as though my current model of behaviour is especially different from what it has been for some time now.  That is, I breakfasted as usual at a befitting hour this morning; I bicycled about 5 Km today; I sunbathed; I chatted with several people in the neighbourhood; and, finally at the end of the day I consigned myself to my routine hobby enterprises.  The most notable difference in my day is that I did not drive my automobile or go to get it washed. This I agree sounds a trifling contrast. It does however signal a material polarity. When I am at home that pallid undertaking normally consumes 2 – 3 hours each day. The transaction involves travelling a considerable distance from my hometown Almonte to nearby Stittsville, whence I swing northerly to Renfrew County and back around through White Lake and the Township of Pakenham. The length of the journey is prolonged by my time-honoured old-fogey style of driving, which is to say I am not in a rush. I take time to enjoy the bucolic scenery while passing through the expansive farmlands and over the numerous riparian tributaries.

It is an added embarrassment to my current disapproval of inactivity that seemingly the only difference between what I now do and what I have always done is a car wash. This however does a great disfavour to the personal gravity of driving an automobile. As I am now wont regularly to observe, I inherited from my father an imperishable affection for the passenger automobile and for its aimless locomotion about the countryside (which in my father’s instance was exaggerated to include routine jaunts from the Province of Ontario to the Province of New Brunswick where he owned 200 acres of rural property). Naturally I don’t pretend that my father’s extensive outings compare to my casual drives to the car wash. Yet the deprivation foments a collision with my routine assessment of productivity and general anthropomorphic utility. It’s not that I do not relish the occasion instead to read the improving literature of Thomas Babington Macaulay or Thomas Paine or Thomas Carlyle. But for whatever reason the daily mechanical persuasion of driving punctuated the overall dynamic of my being, insinuating it with a sense of accomplishment albeit of little importance.

You will, I am certain, Dear Reader, agree that in any event it is far past the moment of recognition to distort the process by any noticeable amendment. Frankly I rejoice to enlarge the complaisance by re-asserting the worth of the piffling preoccupation. Indeed it is one of only two regrets I have of sojourning on Key Largo for the season that I am denied my habit of going to the car wash.  The Overseas Highway which constitutes the spine of the Florida Keys is, in spite of its inexpressible beauty, not a meandering country road.  The other regret, should you care to know, is of a similar design; namely, my inability by virtue of my declining mobility issues to bicycle as broadly as I once did.  I mention both ingredients of contrition because they capture my passion for movement. The physical element of the cycling is certainly an improving characteristic; but overall, whether driving or cycling, I just like to keep moving. The wind in my hair, the sun on my face – either way, on the bike or in the car – is for me an enormous satisfaction. It helps too to have what I consider a fine device upon which to travel.  My current cycling device is a Sun tricycle. Already I am anxious to take possession of the new hybrid vehicle I’ve ordered for delivery in May. Meanwhile however I am obliged to restrict both my cycling and automotive outings.  It is upon reflection small compensation for the many other superlative features of Key Largo.