poliphilo

It's been raining all day. Ailz told me I wouldn't melt so I put on my hat and coat and did my usual patrol round the fields- taking special care not to tread on all the big black slugs.

I over-heard my mother talking on the phone to my sister this evening. "No," she said. "It hasn't been raining here."

I do get low. I don't dwell on it here because I don't want this blog to be a moan. "Accentuate the positive" is one of my mottoes. Besides the black mood passes. This evening I had my supper (just a bowl of cereal) an hour earlier than my mother because breaking out of her routines eases the sense of entrapment.

I'm re-reading- Robert Aickman's "strange" stories. "Strange" was his preferred term for them because he didn't like "horror" and "ghost" is hardly accurate. (This, by the way, is his centenary year and Faber is celebrating it by reissuing all his fiction. And about time too). Aickman is my idea of comfort reading.