Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
(Isaac Watts, ‘Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past’ (1708))
Sunday, November 10. A morning remembrance:
10.00 am: The church service, for Remembrance Sunday, was held an hour earlier. Shortly before 11.00 am we gathered around the memorial at the square in Llanbadarn Fawr village:
I’m grateful for being among a generation that hasn’t had to fight wars. And this, because of the sacrifice made by men and woman of my parents’, grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations. I hope and pray that my children will be spared those horrors in theirs.
1.30 pm: Following lunch, we took an afternoon’s promenade to the halfway point on Constitution Hill. It’s impossible to photograph or paint the sunlight’s reflection upon the sea without overexposing the rest of the picture:
Monday, November 11. 7.00 am: The world churned restlessly. News reports of the flooding and disruption in Yorkshire and the Midlands were focussed on case studies of individuals who’d lost homes and businesses. One policeman described the relentless rainfall as an ‘inundation like Noah’s flood in its severity’. I hear the names of places that I’ve visited in the past, before the climate began to change:
8.30 am: The Monday morning scope of the weekend’s emails and consequent readjustments to this week’s teaching timetable. ‘You’re a man of routine, John!’, it has been commented. True. But not because I’m dull and predictable. When I first developed ME, the discipline of repetition and regularity encouraged me to keep going and challenge the illness in a structured manner. I’ve maintained the habit ever since; it works (for me). I’d be away from university during the middle of the week, so I had to fit a quart into a pint-pot, teaching-wise. [Rearranges the furniture.]
9.00 am: Back to the CD websites. An end was in sight. But inconsistencies of convention abounded still, and Weebly had developed an italic deletion bug. And I’d spelt ‘unintelligible’ incorrectly in a number of places. Time appeared to pass exceedingly slowly during the morning. My body ached for lunch; for the want of something warm inside. By lunchtime, I was ready to cross-check (as they say on planes) the formatting of all three websites against one another.
1.30 pm: Off to town against the chill (snow in the air kind of) wind to try and pick up my automated collection ticket, which I failed to do because I’d missed off one digit from the ticket collection reference number. (Sigh!) Down ‘Forlorn Street’:
And there’s only a bus from Aberystwyth to Machynlleth, tomorrow. How cruel life can get. 2.15 pm: Other errands run, I went back to my desk and the websites. ‘Concentrate, John!’
By 4.30 pm, the larger part of the project was completed. All that remained was to write several short explanations, and recover part of a lyric that I’d accidentally deleted.
7.45 pm: An evening of admin and various preparations for the next few days. I’ll be travelling tortoise-style (with everything on my back).
I recalled the Callanish Stones on Lewis, Scotland:
