15.04.2024 We only borrow that which we do not destroy.

 ~o~

  Monday 15th 40F/4C. Quite bright but lots of cloud. Up at 6.30 after a reasonable night. 

 It was very odd. I have worked hard all day, for several days, without too many problems. Then, when I dragged the wheely bin along the drive last night I became very breathless.

 I have to go shopping today. So I might as well ride to the village with a dentist. I broke a tooth in half on a bread roll. Hopefully I can get an appointment before it becomes even more painful. 

 7.45 Time for a walk.

 8.15. I had a leisurely stroll. Veiled sunshine, the slight chill and the light breeze did not spoil the experience. As I looped along the drives. The new drive is becoming ever more beautiful. As the sewn grass takes firmer hold on the steep banks and the trees come into leaf. The girls, of the newly built house, had spent quite some time. Collecting and removing the small, surface stones. So that a mower can make short and economical work of taming its thousands of square meters.

 The quiet pond is becoming surrounded in scattered, new, broad-leafed growth. Perhaps irises will enliven the scene further in time. This very real oasis is only slightly removed from the racing traffic. Though I could still hear the noisy thrush all the time I was out.  

 The contrast between the raving lunacy, of scrap man's vast, rusting and rotting hoard. Against the newly formed, soft, green calm. Was never more noticeable than today. It could all have been equally hideous. Yet was formed, with unusual care, by a natural landscape artist. Effortlessly and quietly wielding a huge excavator!  

 All hope that electric cars would bring calm can be safely abandoned. Their tire roar often exceeds the racket of the endlessly-hyped crap which went before. Their exhausts still hanging like filthy, obscene testicles. As if to romance their pulling power. In the pointless hierarchy of gaining one space. On the road to gridlocked hell. Or merely intensive care. For their billions of very real victims worldwide.   

 12.30 Returning from a shopping trip on the bike. Only 20km.  I have a dental appointment early tomorrow morning. Possibly with a student. 

 A strong headwind on the way home. So I engaged Turbo mode and kept pedaling. The relaxed, upright riding position, with the new handlebars, has found its Achilles heel. One I am willing to accept. 

 Dinner was salad. With 12 minute, boiled eggs.

  ~o~