Where has the summer gone?
The hot weather had become like my three months, at the start of this year, on the far side of the Atlantic, a distant dream. Tonight, Saturday, at the end of a dull week, I am transported back to being 36 years of age, with tons of black hair, watching a documentary on Live Aid. Was that really thirty-five years ago? I’m 71 now, so it must be. Another dream?
Although not yet visually obvious, I have made progress, this week, decluttering my house, and disposing of more redundant paperwork and junk accumulated over the decades. I am not as ruthless as I should be, and I still hang on to stuff of limited importance to me and none to anybody else.
I have left the house, once or twice, and on Wednesday, and dropped off a prescription order at the Surgery. I had run out of transparent pockets for my ephemera collection awaiting archiving and cataloguing. I remain uneasy going into Buxton, and apart from bumping into a former work colleague, once I had bought what I was after, I returned to my vehicle on the Station car park and headed for home. That evening, I received a ‘phone call to say that my prescription had already been prepared and was ready for collection. I went in the following day, and now I have two months’ worth of medication.
On Thursday, when there was a break in the wet weather, Bryan the gardener arrived with his young assistant, right on schedule. For a third time this year, both front and back are pristine. While I feel as if I have achieved little this week, certain progress has taken place. Hopefully, the warmth will return soon.
Buxton Festival should have been under way by now. However, there are events taking place on-line, an initiative I am very impressed with. In the days of Zoom, WhatsApp and social media, perhaps the momentum of the Festival, now in its fifth decade, can be maintained.
Buxton Festival dates back to 1979; the Opera House being restored throughout and soon being in use most of each year until the advent of Covid 19, forty-one years later.
As the week closed, blue skies made intermittent appearances, particularly in the afternoons of Friday and Saturday. However, I think any notable warmth is reserved for terrain far lower than where we are.
While tidying up this week, and reorganizing my books, I found time to read and dip into numerous works authored by a former colleague and associates. These are phenomenally researched books from which one can gain an authoritative and comprehensive knowledge of the history of the railways around Buxton and further afield, and over some of which I would make a living. During my career, I did take a small number of photographs, but not in anything like the detail of my former colleague.
Once again, the early hours of the next morning are but five minutes away.
Best wishes, Stay safe, David. 23.56 11/7!20.
David's Cruise 