From the moment I threw back the duvet and flung my shanks overboard earlier today – I hesitate to use the words “this morning” because I was so treacherously late arising – I have conversed with an uncommon buoyancy.  And even more strangely the blitheness has continued uninterrupted throughout the remainder of the shimmering day. It makes one wonder – is it something I ate?  Or just a good slumber? Or perhaps the ineffable weather about which everyone was celebrating as we mingled with JB and another while bicycling in the neighbourhood surrounded by yellow and violet spring flowers, wide spaces of yellow dandelions judiciously left untouched for the moment? It might even be something insidious such as the “risk of harm from cannabis resulting from daily or near-daily use over a prolonged period of time“. Other times I imagine the enchantment is luck of the draw, a chance formula ignited by the unpredictable combination of events occurring over a stretch of days, even months, even a lifetime. It can take a long time for things to rise up after penetrating reflection. And then there’s the more immediate preserve of hair and product; as well as how the steel cut oats and kéfir were perfection; the apple was crisp and clean; the brown toasted bagel sodden with butter and peanut butter that dripped from my fingers onto the Crown Derby sideplate as I bent to consume a crunchy morsel.

What an odd compunction it is to feel as though – without any entitlement – life is divine. Is it the crescendo that Daniel Bernoulli endorsed?

He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in the Bernoulli’s principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy, which describes the mathematics of the mechanism underlying the operation of two important technologies of the 20th century: the carburetor and the airplane wing.

And what if our human development had not involved such horrid contamination of our environment? If we had been content to remain within our native boundaries without automation and fossil fuels? Would the fields have been broader, more abundant or more nutritious? And who exactly formulated the recipe for evolution?  Can it be changed?

The young man who bagged my provisions at Farm Boy this afternoon had black and white polish painted on alternate fingernails, with a slim silver bracelet on his wrist. I hadn’t occasion to see his face but I had noticed when waiting in line that his hair was theatrical. He spoke well and performed his duties gingerly and astutely. I wanted to ask him, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” but it seemed inappropriate. Nonetheless he was skilled. His patent ability spoke well for the future of humanity.

My father was a pilot, first and foremost. It was I venture but one of many things about which he never spoke at any length.  He and his crew were shot down in the North Atlantic Ocean by a German submarine and spent 9 hours bobbing in a dinghy until the British arrived.  Not everyone in the dinghy made it – something my father curiously attributed to the perished few having drunk too much alcohol the night before. Did my father have his good days? How does the sun shine after such an episode, does one ever recover? What could he have said even if he were to have spoken?

The Lockheed Hudson is a light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built by the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. It was initially put into service by the Royal Air Forceshortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and primarily operated by it thereafter. The Hudson was a military conversion of the Model 14 Super Electra airliner, and was the first significant aircraft construction contract for Lockheed — the initial RAF order for 200 Hudsons far surpassed any previous order the company had received.

The Hudson served throughout the war, mainly with Coastal Command but also in transport and training roles, as well as delivering agents into occupied France. It was also used extensively with the Royal Canadian Air Force’s anti-submarine squadrons and by the Royal Australian Air Force.