The near perfect day

It all started so well, the sun was shining, the birds may have been singing – I usually try to blot that out in the morning – the coffee smelt good and The Dog was due to be picked up before 10am.

A nice walk in the park later, it was back home for Time Tests and Predicted Grades, and although the rain showers put paid to my earlier foray into the garden, the afternoon was pottering along pleasantly. A glass of vinho verde and some chat, a hand or two of poker, … what next?

The Saturday papers at The Fiery Angel was our next port of call, although this is where our ship foundered:

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong :
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
The southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold :
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken–
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !

Crackling and growling, roaring and howling, these were not the best moments we’ve ever shared. Aboard that ship, with our landlubbers legs and our ghosts, we should have known better than to try and sail to port.

Thankfully a little voice suggested sleeping tablets:

Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole !
To Mary Queen the praise be given !
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

This morning, although I am suffering the ‘post-sleeping tablet hangover’, the world once again seems a happy, sunny place and somehow we’ve made it to port!

Laying to rest some ghosts of mine…The Man hasn’t left me, he even made me coffee this morning! Long may we sail together The Man and Me.

* The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

~ by harrietdg on July 6, 2008.