Bumpkin

Days have already shortened noticeably. Evening draws in much earlier. Lily has yet to adjust and intermittently continues with her 0430 wake-up calls at which time it is now still pitch dark, which does not make rising at that hour any more appealing!

Greeting the dawn is all very well, but I am not much motivated to stagger around in the dark.

We are waiting to see if the Senate will approve permanent Daylight Savings Time which would presumably mean that this Fall’s time change (an hour back) will be the last. I’ve always felt those changes were unnecessary though since it was brought up in the House, I’ve seen headlines that suggest it would adversely affect different groups of people.

One way or the other, I have no input, so I haven’t bothered reading the details. Whatever happens, no doubt some people will grumble and then carry on.

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An early appointment took us to Albany this morning.

The state capital is a small, unglamorous city of some 102,000 residents.

per Wikipedia:

Albany is one of the oldest surviving European settlements from the original Thirteen Colonies^[27] and the longest continuously chartered city in the United States.^[h] When New Netherland was captured by the English in 1664, the name was changed from Beverwijck to Albany in honor of Prince James, Duke of Albany (later King James VII/II).^[30][i] Duke of Albany was a Scottish title given since 1398, generally to a younger son of the King of Scots.^[31] The name is ultimately derived from Alba, the Gaelic name for Scotland

To be fair, I haven’t seen a great deal of the city, going there only as necessary and escaping again as quickly as possible. Having found the joy of country living, I have no desire whatever to be anywhere near suburbia, never mind a city, of any size.

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Living on Long Island as I did for 36 years, I was accustomed to traffic on the roads, but except for driving to Brooklyn a handful of times, I avoided ever driving into New York City. The idea of it filled me with dread, as if finding myself driving on New York streets, I would get stranded there for all eternity.

New York City overwhelms me. It is, I am sure, all those enormously tall buildings that seem to detach the sky and trap the sound of traffic which reverberates in echoes. If you’ve grown up there, or lived there for a long time, I imagine it is a feeling you accustom to and some people love the place. I do not.

Leaving Long Island, I went to live for 18 years outside Seattle where traffic was appalling, yet I did drive to that city a few times. I did not enjoy it, but I defy anyone to claim they ever enjoyed driving in Seattle. At least I was not traumatised by it. Seattle itself did not intimidate me the way New York City does.

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Father looked down his nose at his in-laws who he regarded as country-bumpkins. During our summer holidays, my brother and I were taken down to Wiltshire to visit. I don’t know about my brother, but my feelings were very mixed.

The cottage where we stayed was terribly cramped and facilities were very basic. What worried me most about the cold, smelly outhouse was that it housed spiders.

When I wasn’t fretting about spiders, I was concerned about meeting cows in the lane or when we went walking in the fields.

On top of that, the family dog Judy barked and snapped at me.

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Apart from all that, it seemed that I was allergic to the English countryside in summer as my asthma always flared up during those visits.

However, despite all that, I loved sitting in a train as it steamed out of London and into the wide open space beyond the city. I was enchanted by the fields and safe inside that carriage, I loved all the farm animals, even the cows.

Looking back, I can see that my attraction to the country is not in fact a recent thing.

It was there all along, waiting to be acknowledged.

(Late posting due to power outage)

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