When Daylight Saving Time started, it seemed a good idea to simply overwrite the numbers but six months later I'm having one hell of a time to wipe them off again. I tried dishwashing liquid, soap, even a cloth drenched in turpentine, all with little or no success.
I just hope I can get it done before the second of April when Daylight Saving Time ends. Not that I'm keen on it to end as it always heralds the coming of cooler weather. I am what you might call a tropical bird and what little blood I have left has become thin after years in the tropics.
Riverbend's large living area has alongside one wall a huge mantelpiece which in summertime serves as a repository of all those small things one is afraid to lose and therefore wants to keep an eye on, and which then becomes the centre of the whole house when the huge bricked-in slow-combustion fireplace beneath it is lit at the first sign of cooler weather.
It is astonishing just how much heat it throws out and how it draws everyone in - with books, Scrabble, chessboard, knitting - to toast marshmellows or prod a smoldering log or make dream pictures in the flames or listen to the sounds the fire makes - the crackling and the hissing and the sighing and strange whimpering of a knotted log.
What a profound and sacred mystery fire is! More than warmth, more than comfort, more than illumination, more than protection from wild beasts, it reminds us of a time when our forebears still lived in caves.
Personally, I think that going to sleep in front of a fire is one of the nicest possible things to do, and I might just light it right now. That piece of cloth drenched in turpentine should do well to get it started.
