Whatever physical energy I may once have dragged with me into the eighth decade of my life is now inexorably on the decline. The well is running dry. I have today forced myself to do what was planned and a bit more but none of it happened without visible difficulty and an unflattering corporeal effort, nor without an accompanying feeling of obstruction and complaint, hobbling bent over with stick-in-hand, face to the ground, the veritable picture of withering decrepitude. This is especially objectionable when the tasks were not uncomfortable tasks or feats I did not wish to perform. Rather my aging and contorted carcass simply refused to rise to the occasion, refused to greet the challenge, refused to endure the petty hardship even for the sake of dignity. I felt in the throes of perpetual defeat!

Though I succeeded this afternoon to replenish my soul (though not my anatomy) with an abbreviated tricycle ride about the neighbourhood, so violent was the inner upheaval today that I irreligiously withdrew this afternoon from my ritual drive along the Appleton Side Road between the ramparts of towering corn stalks into the suburban outer limits for a purgative car wash. This unprecedented disruption speaks to the moment! Even that clinical, repetitve transition from debasement to catharsis was today abused for the sake of meeting the trifling indequacies of human deliberation.

Yet in the result I have nonetheless refashioned my slumping performance on the public avenues. On the heels of attainment of my social obligations at the golf club this morning and in the drawing room this afternoon I have, with the well reputed aid of a triple espresso and the harmony of overlooking the placid river, regained what clarity of strength and ambition permeated my veins and have slowly arisen to the faultlessness of Alexis Ffrench performing with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Music is always so soulful and fervent, a complete restoration.

Now follows the indulgences and final rewards of the day, the cocktail hour of recapitulation and reconsideration as we immerse ourselves at table in nattering and reformation of the events of the day. The sunny rich yellow shaft of light upon the mirror of the river shines from its perimeter of burnished leaves in the thick forest line. Autumn with its subdued air of folding and divestment is about its business. We shall soon scurry like rabbits from the inevitable peril of scudding snow and freezing rain. But for now it’s butterflies and Ladybugs that quell the awakening uproar, that soften the gusts of fallen leaves and soothe the smacks of the bitter wind that follows.