Rainy Day

It is almost unimaginable that I could be any more torpid today than any other day. I mean to say, spending one's day tootling about on a bicycle then lounging by the sea for hours is hardly a recommendation of labour of any order!  What is however telling - and somewhat tolerable - is that the weather today was singularly uninviting, grey clouds and mostly rain on and off. It wasn't at all uplifting compared to a brilliantly sunny day beneath an azure sky.

In fact there had been a forecast of the inclement weather and I had early on chosen to adopt a profitable posture notwithstanding the anticipated disappointing alteration.  If the truth be known I welcomed the modification because it handily sustained my secret desire to forgo the habitual daily exercise; and it afforded me time within which to conduct my weekly laundry of the bed clothes (a tiresome domestic duty which normally interrupts my more sought-after predilections). Besides everyone knows a rainy day is good ammunition for doing household business of almost any description, including the more intellectual pursuits of a reading or writing. It is testament to the challenge of the novelty that it was an overreach to locate from my collection of photographs anything resembling a rainy day. It's just not something which happens here regularly - or if it does, not usually for any duration.  Given my subsurface yearning for indolence, it was fortunate that today was one of prolonged stormy weather.

It was pushing one o'clock this afternoon when I succeeded to complete my rainy day agenda. Within moments thereafter I began contemplating my dismay at having nothing further to do of a productive nature - an obsession which I willingly concede is fraught with psychological undertone. Be that as it may - and even allowing the value of using the opportunity to broaden one's horizons - my lethargy was such that I hadn't enthusiasm for anything requiring rigour or assiduity. I resolved instead to telephone my ancient friend currently perched nearby with her partner to see if she were available for coffee and a chin wag.  She was! An hour later we four were in the car together headed to Island Coffee Haus on Anna Maria Island.

Island Coffee Haus

We seated ourselves at an assembly of chairs and a couch at the most interior end of the establishment - complete of course with strong coffee and toothsome nibbles. We weren't long in sharing and recalling a number of stories - many of which spanned years. The candour approached the likes of which normally accompanies stronger restoratives, an attribute I consider spoke well of the community!  We were fortuitously joined by another couple from Canada (friends of our friends) who related that in or near Tennessee en route to Florida they had endured the misadventure of a slight - though costly - car accident, not the sort of event anyone wants added to one's stock of tales.