Peace

Oh it’s peaceful here.

Just up the road there’s a café where you can get a decent breakfast without getting skinned. Lime Wharf Café. I went there to start the day. Really good ingredients, well used. I don’t want to link it just as it is so good that I don’t want to encourage it to put the prices up… It is well attended, of course. Rowing people, making food for themselves and others. My first proper girlfriend ended up rowing for Balliol and left me for a woman. Good on her. I like rowing people.

Last night was a little restless, as my early bed meant I was rested when the storm came. About 3am I got out of bed and stood at the French window with the cats flanking me, watching the woods in storm. Nature can be noisy. Sheet lightning, no forked, so… nothing on fire but a huge amount of water and rain and noise. Here it is so quiet that I can record a self-tape outdoors. Suddenly the booming of an angry sky, the rushing of the water and I was glad of mankind’s ingenuity to keep me dry. I enjoyed being here in stormy emptiness for a while. The cats were mostly pretty chilled so I didn’t feel I needed to stay up for them. So I turned in again and slept until the light woke me.

Sure I’ve got Jempson’s fifteen minutes one way and Lime Wharf Café fifteen minutes the other. This is in the woods but barely. It’s enough though. I love being here as I feel totally cut off.

Rain all morning though so I downloaded Skyrim and started up again – I’ve never got very far in Skyrim. Too much to do and it’s too big. I’ll finally have a playthrough on my Steam Deck where I can’t be distracted with modding it. The sun came out at 3 so all games were abandoned in favour of cats and sunshine. These furry boys know me well now and they like the same things I do. Food, sun and nature. One or the other or both have been winding round my legs all afternoon as I’ve tried to balance my tan. There’s a path at the back of the house so occasionally a whippet wanders through and sees me and the cats. Mostly it is super peaceful.

Tomorrow will be much like today, a day of long banked peace. There are social things and I’m slightly at war with myself about them. I could drive up to London and back but 6 hours driving just really doesn’t appeal when I did that every day last week. I’m just going to relax here in the post storm woods with these delightful shadowcreatures. I might cook up something again. And no pressure to do anything. I can relax.