Ladders hats and benches

We narrowly escape crashing into the Moon

Our grandson Luke came to stay for a few days, and following a longstanding promise, we took him to a new escape room in Haverhill. This involved solving many logical puzzles to restart the systems of a rocket about to crash-land on the Moon..We survived this ordeal with a little help from the mission controllers, and managed to escape for a group picture.

Up the ladder in my new hat

Following the announcement about my lost hat, Lucy generously sent a new soft floppy hat, ideal for working in the few hot summer days England enjoys. I seized the opportunity to do some gardening and basic repairs, including repainting the Dragoon Saloon, now converted to an office for Edwin.

The hat protects my scalp well enough, but leaves the brain inside to stew in its own devices, and as absent minded as ever. After walking the dogs in the park at Clare, I returned home to  find my glasses missing. They had been on my nose when I left, so I worked backwards to conclude they had been left on the bench I'd sat on. This bench is dedicated to  Harriet Loram who died two years ago. I knew her well as a fellow dog walker of a greedy Labrador called Victor, after Hugo. She was a history scholar who helped set up reading groups in the library, and in 2015 helped organise the 800th-year commemorations for Clare's role in signing Magna Carta in 1215. She died alone and was undiscovered for several days. Her dog was then highly disturbed and would settle with no one else, and had to be put down. Returning to Clare as soon as possible, I retraced my steps to the bench. Someone had picked up the glasses and perched them on the side arm of the bench, which seemed to be wearing them so they were staring emptily to the blue sky, like a miniature Easter Island effigy.

Harriet Loram memorial bench in Clare

On my wrist that evening was a tiny black spot - could it be some minute insect or parasite? From experience of living in unsavoury places, I have a high respect for the malevolent benefits of small insects, and try to avoid intimate contact. It seemed to move as I watched, but it was probably the movement of my own uncertain arm that gave it the semblance of a jerking life form. Once recently, I discovered such a visitor while sitting on the toilet, and – panicking that it was the harbinger of an infestation of lice – I collected it in a small jar and took it to my local doctor for analysis. Though he confessed he had never been faced with this type of request, he duly looked up what form he needed and sent it off. A few days later the report came back that it was a harmless garden insect. This time, after watching for a while, I finally flicked it off, and any potential life was extinguished.