A blustery day!
So, our business meeting this morning was blustery in more ways than one! It was still rather stormy - a storm that had rattled round for a few days wreaking a bit of havoc in our household as it damaged my poor wife’s greenhouse. So much time spent painstakingly propagating seeds all upturned in an instant and crashed to the floor :( - Anyone got any propagated seeds going spare!?!
But the second little storm of the morning was Diggers! He was certainly on a mission today, rather different from last week if you remember! So much for March coming in like a Lion and going out like a Lamb I thought.
‘Hey ’What's up with you this morning Diggers? I asked as I gently tried to pull him back to heel.
‘I haven’t got time to hang about said Diggers, there is so much to do and so little time to get it done in! Come on, let’s get this walk over with, then I can get back and tick the next thing off my list!’ I had taken him off the lead by now (otherwise the lead was rapidly becoming a garrote rather than a guide). He trotted past a rabbit hole, head high in the wind, his ‘lockdown fur’ blowing like Mufasa’s mane in the Lion King (he gets a haircut tomorrow … and a bath - Yay!!). No nose to the ground sniffing out the scents this morning.
I scrambled after him (now there’s a turn up for the books). ‘Aren’t you going to investigate that rabbit hole Diggers? I normally can’t get you out of them.’
‘No time!’ he retorted, steaming along the green lane. ‘Come on!’ he shouted back ‘If we turn down the next lane and into the copse we could shave a good 20 minutes off the walk’. I could barely hear him now because of the wind and the distance. His short little legs going nineteen to the dozen. Against the wind he looked like Dougal in a carwash.
I put on a sprint and eventually caught up with him and grabbed hold of him. ‘What’s going on Diggers? Why this rush and why are you looking to cut out bits of your walk and get home as quickly as possible? Why are you not stopping to investigate every rabbit hole, mole hill and dock leaf you pass by? Why the rush?’
Diggers tried to carry on, but I had him in a ‘Tyson hold’. He was panting heavily due to his burst of activity, his Mufasa haircut and those extra gravy bones.
‘I’ve TOLD you’, he panted, I haven’t got time for this today. Don’t you realize that we lost an hour today - I’ll never fit everything in!’
‘But you look forward to your long Sunday walk’, I said.
Diggers sat down and looked up with those big Jack Russell eyes. ‘I know’, he said, but not today, there just isn’t time’.
‘Well, It’s like this Diggers’, I said, trying to keep his wayward beard out of his face in the wind. ‘Today is a day, just like any other day. We might have lost an hour, but then again, with the evening being lighter we can probably do what we needed to before the light falls away. If the day is slightly shorter just be a little more realistic about the things you want to achieve, release your expectations a little. Rather than fit everything in and whizz through everything like a frantic tick list, turning even those things you enjoy into chores rather than pleasures, commit to less but take the time to enjoy and experience them. Worrying about the passing of time is a wasted energy. It will pass whether we want it to or not, like the river running away under the bridge, once it’s gone you can’t get it back’.
I reminded Diggers of a quote by two of my favourite childhood characters, Winnie the Pooh and dearest Piglet….
‘What day is it today?’ asked Pooh
‘It’s today’, squeaked Piglet
‘My favourite day’, said Pooh
A.A.Milne
I looked round but Diggers was gone, back down the pathway we had come….. Back towards that rabbit hole! The meeting was over.
Stormy skies
Even the horses had taken cover today
No time to stop today!
