THE JOURNAL

1 November Sunday

Not very long ago the naming of dogs was simple.  It was all names like Whitey and Blacky and Pal. Increasingly the names for dogs are the names of people but they are not the same names that people here would name their children.  It is fine to call a dog Max or Oscar or Bruno or Zeke.  These are not the names of any people that anyone knows.  There are people names for dogs and then there are people names for people.  There is no one calling their dog Michael or Paddy or Seamus.  No one would call their dog Kevin because they no doubt know a Kevin and they would not want that Kevin to come to their house and take offense that the dog has his own name.

2 November Monday

Margaret was out walking.  She was delighted with the warm bright day.  It was almost hot.   Her delight was over-shadowed by her feelings of depression about the early nightfall. She said she feels a terrible pressure to get jobs done before the dark.  There are jobs to be done before the dark and then there are the jobs to be put off and done after the darkness falls.  She complained that the darkness comes so early and there is so much dark that she cannot get enough jobs done in the light and then when it is dark she does not want to do the jobs that she would have done in the light.  She said she spends a lot of the day saying that she will wait and do that job after dark or this job after dark but then she leaves too many things to be done.  Or maybe it is not true that she leaves too many jobs it is just that the days are shorter and shorter.  Really she just cannot stand it.  She decided to take a walk out today because the sun was shining and she knew that a walk was a thing she would not and could not do after the darkness fell.

3 November Tuesday

Numbers have been sprayed onto the road with white paint.  100.  200.  300.  I am not sure why.  There might have been a race.  There might have been some digging to be done.  The numbers probably represent metres but I have not paid enough attention to the distance between them to know if that is the case.  They are far enough apart that I can forget about them and be reminded and then I can forget again.  They are not near to any buildings nor any gates. I have been waiting for their meaning to be revealed to me. I have been waiting but I have not done one single thing to find out what the numbers mean.  It is not pressing. They are no longer freshly painted.  The numbers appeared sometime in the spring. 200 is still clearly visible.  100 is faded and I can no longer locate 300.