Another End of Summer

Dear Blog,

Do I only come to you when I am depressed? I thought today was the end of summer, but according to my older analysis, it was probably yesterday (especially since this was a leap year).

Nonetheless, it is solidly grey, and has been dull or drizzly for days and is forecast to be so for a few more weeks. It already grows dark at a quarter to nine at night, and dawn only begins to break at a quarter to five in the morning.

Another summer is over. I will not be afraid of winter this year. It will come, so I will let it come. There are many things to do before winter sets in, and being afraid of winter is not as good as getting those things done.

What a crappy summer it has been though. Quite apart from the weather being drab, there were few moments of joy. It will be remembered as the summer of a visit to Canada, struggling with the allotment, doing a canal camp, and having my bicycle stolen. Indeed, to be fair the summer would have been tolerable if July had never happened.

I got taken out to lunch on Friday, and the food was so good that I was reminded how important food is to me. Then I went to Brighton, which has become a squalid affair. I stayed at friends' and got to see their new hobby, a pair of chickens, and got a bang up Sunday dinner and was given an unwanted mountain bike on top of that.

I should be grateful for all of it: particularly the relief of getting out of London even just for one night, but since being back I am even more aimless than before. I do feel utterly worthless. The austerity of my diet and my lifestyle is more starkly exposed, for having had a break. My pauperish existence is not one that I wish to endure forever. While I only got to dream of keeping chickens last year, friends with the money and the space just went out and bought the dream from Omlet and have fresh eggs every day. The mountain bike is a good bike, but it is not designed for touring/trekking. I am unfamiliar with its mechanics. Its rack is a feeble affair compared to the one that was on the stolen bike. There are no mudguard stays (or mudguards, or even mudguard lugs) to protect huge panniers from the wheel.

So dear blog, where next? Summer is over, and all the summer dreams have to be retired, even though I achieved only one of them. This is autumn, the season of preparation for winter. This is 2008, the year I wanted to leave London for good. It looks like it isn't going to happen.

Perhaps I should join the masses, and dream of winning the Lottery. No, Dog forbid that I should ever be so common. I could keep dreaming of getting my bike back, but police success at recovering stolen bicycles seems to be less than 10%, so I would be wasting my dreams there.

No, there is only one thing for it, and that is to find Joy. Joy in Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Living without Joy is a means of survival, but why should we Humans develop a globalized technological industrial economy if we aspire to nothing more than survival? Birds can survive and make joyful song, yet they have no machines, no electricity, nothing, so long as they are left enough natural space.

Joy. How many other things are important enough so that in English they have been given a three-letter word?