Scuff

A highlight of today was sitting with Elizabeth, a sausage roll and some coffee on a grassy mound next to a heap of lavender well populated by bees.

Before it closed I ran to an outdoors shop to collect some new walking boots ahead of an upcoming holiday which will hopefully be spent entirely outdoors. With my existing pair of walking boots in Mozambique I should have got this replacement pair one year ago, like so many things that would have been more sensible if I’d known I’d still be here 16 months later. The shop didn’t want to pass me the boots because they were a bit scuffed, which I honestly couldn’t give a toss about. They did knock 20% off though, which was a win. The streets were eerily quiet and I realised many people were watching the England game. I’ve become really disinterested in football over the years; certainly I don’t deem it important enough to interfere with the acquisition of walking boots.

I received a wedding invitation from a colleague for September, which was very kind of her. She understood the response, which was along the lines of both of us hoping that I wouldn’t be around for it, but that I would join if the limbo becomes more interminable. There are some very inconvenient aspects of life in limbo.