It hardly seems appropriate or predictable that I should require or relish a recovery from a three-day holiday jaunt to the Southern Florida Keys, yet it is so. There was not a drop of alcohol contaminating or fuelling the furlough – an admonition which historically prevailed. Yet the boon of home is not to be diminished. Among the favours are a clean car, standard fare for the larder, strong black coffee, laundered clothing, the convenience of a laptop computer and re-connecting with friends and associates regarding both personal and business matters.

I cannot resist relating as well that upon our return to Sarasota we ventured to the Mall at University Town Center to visit the Apple store. There I purchased a Bose bluetooth mini-speaker (what is more correctly called a Bose Micro Soundlink). This tiny but extraordinarily workable device satisfies what has been a burgeoning urge for a decent speaker for the albums I download from Apple Music. It helped that the gimmicky bluetooth radio I already own is not responding.

In all the summary is one of unabridged smugness! The succinct vacation was characterized by wafts of pleasure. From beginning to end our encounters were pleasingly emotive, moderately entertaining and emphatically rewarding. The abiding blueprint for exhilaration is categorical simplicity. It is a dangerous ambition to pretend to predict persistent contentment, the threat of contradiction is there whether one prefers or not to acknowledge its inevitability. But after the recent fortuity we’ve experienced it seems outright ungrateful to quell the gusto by any measure. Indeed it is part of the thrill to succumb to the blatant hedonism of the moment – un poco andante!

Yesterday morning over breakfast we chatted with the young hostess. She is presently a student of nursing, working intermittently to pay her way presumably. When the subject of hopeful ambition arose – as not uncommonly it does particularly among young people – I instantly advanced the theory that one must learn to appreciate the moment whatever it may entail. I specifically warned against the mistaken yearning for improvement of affairs at a later date as though depending on changing circumstances. While the improvement may certainly transpire, I persist to believe that real success in life is revelling in the only perspective that exits. For me the proposition is axiomatic. We know only the one universe.