O soothest sleep! If so it please thee, close, in midst of this thine blog, my willing eyes... Have been stricken with narcolepsy. Feel like sleeping all the time, despite a decent nine hour sleep punctuated with nightmares, and a hour nap in the afternoon, I am ready for an early night.

Bade a very fond farewell to Joan and Dick at the farm as the dogs Nico and Maggie sprinted around us playing at savaging each other's faces. I loved being at the farm, and Joan and Dick are most excellent people. Felt a bit sad as we drove off, wondering if I would ever see Deviation Road again as they have plans to move to be near the sea in Nova Scotia.

The drive home was like being in a car ad where a single car drives through wonderful scenery on the open road. Passed a massive wind farm with dozens of the huge wind turbines ranked across the open landscape like a scene from the war of the worlds.

Romy has a major work deadline this week and so had to return to the office despite this being a Victoria Day, a Canadian national holiday.

Meaty the cat happy to have us home. Toby had brought a big bag of catnip with him from the farm. I have often bragged about being catnip for the ladies but I had never seen anything like this. Tobs gave the cat a single leaf of the stuff, and this was followed by orgiastic writhing for at least 15 minutes with her rubbing herself on it, and licking it and chewing it and so on. It is an amazing drug.

Toby had school books to mark and I abandoned myself to an enjoyable reading and snooze fest. I read the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf, which was outstandingly good. I have never been able to finish it in other translations, but this made the poem come alive and was tremendously readable. What an astonishing poem Beowulf is revealed to be. I loved all the grappling with dragons and the codes of honour etc. What a debt Tolkien owes to it. Also read a book about the friendship between CS Lewis and Tolkien, which was a dull and worthy effort but a subject matter I was interested in.

Otherwise lurked about with Tobs chatting and drinking tea. Really nice to be able to hang out and have the time for conversation to happen naturally. Then overcome by tiredness and sloped off to bed early. Poor Romy still hard it at the office at 10.

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