Discontent

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York,
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house   
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

Thus sayeth Richard III about the accession of his brother to the throne of England.  Well, of course it doesn’t turn out well, but there is some echo of our current situation here, independent of how it turns out.  It is certainly possible that there will be at some time a glorious summer for us here in Point Roberts, but at the moment, we are getting the winter of our discontent, and particularly we are getting all the clouds that lour’d upon our house fully engaged in their lowering.  At noon, it is as dim as at 4 p.m.  And by 4 and change, it is dark.

This month has offered us unrelenting rain and cloud, with some days a tremendous amount of rain, while some other days offer us only quite a lot of rain.  Although there have been days—a few—which have had scraps of sun or at least of lightening skies, they have been so few and the brighter periods so brief that by now they are about as easy to believe in as that glorious summer supposed to be somewhere ahead.  November is always like this, but the cheerful days of summer always make one forget what is coming straight on.

Up here on the Sunshine Coast, where I am at the moment, we have not this past week had the hard winds that knocks out the power.  But down in Point Roberts, I am told, there has been much crashing of trees and much knocking out of power.  This loss of power is a real hardship if it goes on for more than a few hours and if one has no independent source of heat or cooking other than the disappeared electricity.  It is at least a good thing that we have neither creeks nor rivers to overflow, although flooding from the ocean can occur.   We are hoping that no tree has downed itself on our P.R. house and garden, but our near neighbors, who would know, are not in residence right now, either.  So we will have to wait until next week to see what has become of us.

Much discontent.