You know how I’m often on the balcony having my early morning cup of tea, listening to the sounds of the darkest hours, and planning my day ahead… Well, it seems it’s a good time and place for random thoughts, such as:
The other morning about an hour before sunrise, the moon was coming up in the west, just a sliver as it was on the wane, and the rest was in shadow. How does that work? I thought. If the sun’s about to come up behind it, how come the front of it is in shadow?
That was one, and I know there’s an explanation somewhere. Another one occurred this morning, and that was, ‘Why don’t computers work on weekends? Is there some union rule that says they can’t? If I set up a bank transfer, say, to pay the rent on a particular date, and that date is a weekend, the payment won’t be actioned until Monday. The same happens if I transfer funds from PayPal to my bank. Can’t do it at a weekend, computer says no. ‘Your transaction will happen in the next two business days,’ it says, as if automated computer systems pack up their desks on a Friday and hot foot it down to the Chip and Anchor for a few pints before picking up a curry on the way home.
What do they do all weekend, these algorhythms? What keeps them so busy?
‘Sorry, I can’t process your automatic payment today, I’ve got to take Tabitha to violin, and Baxter has football at ten.’ Surely these things are automatic. Or, maybe, someone has to sit with them as they do their thing, and there are not enough sitters to go around. I imagine a lone worker in a vast cubicle farm in the Arizona desert, sitting at his desk watching a screen and coaxing along millions of bank payments and card transactions. As he’s working the long weekend alone, he can only allow so many to pass, none of them mine.
I don’t know, but what I do know, is that while musing on the pointless, I also saw some bats. I don’t know much about bats, except you use them in cricket and gothic novels, and I wondered why I am only seeing them now? Is it the time of year? Do they move house? We used to see them a lot when we lived up at Triada, but not so much here. Recently, we’ve seen quite a few, or the same one going around in multiple circles trying to find a crumbling castle or silly mid-wicket.
Tits, too. Coal tits are back (above), and they are something else we only see around here in the winter, as are robins, though I’ve not seen one yet. We’ve had the usual run on pigeons, doves, blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows, warblers, a couple of kestrels, the far-away eagles and buzzards over the valley, and seagulls, though not as many as you might think. Oddly, and for the first time in over eight years, I’ve also seen a pied wagtail on the roof of the house in front. I noticed one in the village square the other day, and now it seems to be exploring around the house. I only say ‘oddly’ because I’ve only ever seen them down by the sea or up in the hills and forests.
Anyway, those are the kinds of random things going through my head at 3.30 while I listen to the sea lapping at the quayside wall, the screech of the little owls that live nearby, and a high-pitched drone that’s coming from some boat down below. Random? Yeah, that’s me.
