Tuesday 16thJuly

Every morning I walk the dogs, and this simple task provides me with that rarest of commodities – a moment of calm amid the madness of life.  I don’t always realise it, sometimes hurrying them on, eager to get on with whatever else is pressing to the forefront of my mind, but just lately I am beginning to savour these few minutes.  The dogs know the way and actually they are taking me for a walk, and not the other way round.   There was a time when they would both pull on their leads, but they have settled down now and are happy to take a lazy pace on our little morning circuit.  They do retain the doggy habit of sniffing every single lamp-post and corner of a wall where some other doggy may have left their scent.

They are however quite oblivious of the beauty of these early morning strolls.  With the sun coming up over the river I am often stunned by the beauty of it.  The water, all dapples and changing and yet changeless at the same time; the occasional barge being towed along; the ebb and flow of the tides exposing large stretches of mud where the seagulls peck for worms and bits of long abandoned junk emerge ghostly and mud-drenched from the depths; the hazy hills in the distance, the sun glinting off the serried rows of windows in the new flats; the beautiful symmetry of the Royal Naval College opposite and a bit further on the masts of the Cutty Sark, rebuilt after the devastating fire; the dark grey chimneys of the old power station looming against the skyline; the dry docks where boats are laid up ready for repainting or repair; the greeny-grey walls of the slipway, where the tide washes twice a day and will continue long after I am gone and round another corner the millennium dome slips into view with its red tipped masts and now a tourist walkway right across the top, and there you can just make out the latest white elephant in London, the cable car to nowhere.  Sometimes I just lean on the riverside railings and breathe in all this beauty.

How lucky we are.  And yet how unappreciative of the beauty all around.  Then it is back home and ready for work, where occasionally I will think of that moment of calm in this crazy life.