"Time is a storm in which we are all lost" - William Carlos Williams

I've heard several people say that lockdown - version one, that is; the one in which we were quite severely restricted - changed time itself. Each successive day felt like the previous one. That was our experience, too. But add that to the pre-existent phenomenon of "boaters' time", and we now find ourselves temporally challenged to an extreme degree. What makes things worse still is that, some weeks ago, we changed our daily eating routine to one in which dinner is eaten two or three hours earlier than what's been normal for the past forty-seven years. There is a very good reason for that, though it'd be really difficult to explain outside of a lengthy discussion. But time's confusing. Suffice it to say that I've started to wear again the watch that had lived in a drawer for years, and we both have to check the time and the day far more often than ever before.

Storm Ellen just added to my confusion. Again, each successive day felt like the previous one. The weather was the same every day, following much the same pattern, and neither of us ventured outside the boat at all save for a brief walk to the end of the jetty in the evening when conditions were generally better. One may attribute this befuddlement to the fact that my memory's never been fantastic, and/or that I'm sixty-nine next month, but I can't say with any certainty when the storm struck, nor how long it lasted if, indeed, it's over now. All I do remember is the torrential rain, the vicious, gusty wind, and the skies they left behind during the brief respites.

I'll never forget those.

*******