Tabula rasa?

On this greyish Ne'erday, despite the strangeness of our Hogmanay, we kept one of the ordinances of our family which demands a walk (of course) and managed to get out, just after a quick coffee, by 11am. The sky was brightest to the south, so we walked the farm road at Ardyne as far as Knockdow House and its artificial lake. I've blipped this view more than once, but this last month or so it's been different, because the Russian owner has had the lake cleared of water lilies and bulrushes and it sits there, flat and somehow sterile, reflecting the grey sky and the dark woods. Even the ducks have gone.

I decided it was a metaphor for Ne'erday: the new year starting - the new decade, to my mind, despite the quibbles: tabula rasa, the clean slate, waiting to be written on, its surface disturbed like the wax writing tablet of the ancient Romans. But earlier, as I'd looked out of my high window at the Firth, I'd been thinking what an artifice the whole caper is, this New Year celebration. It's really an abstract concept, created to even out our days, with a little skip and hop every four years to keep us from slipping ...

My tabula rasa began to be less pristine from the moment I got home, with Intercessions to think about and an unexpected sermon on the horizon. But I'm going to keep my mind from filling up for a little longer. Cheers!