The mists of time

Well, I was roundly abused by my dearest friends from St Andrews yesterday. Apparently I NEVER used to walk along the pier as my daily constitutional. All I can say is that I did, and maybe they just weren’t up early enough due to their own decadent lifestyles to catch me striding through the deserted streets at the crack of dawn to take in the good sea air ….. and maybe I did exaggerate a tad. But I definitely remember a long phase when I was going through an annoying love affair (is there any other kind?) when staring moodily at the sea made me feel a lot better. Of course, the sea just stared moodily right back at me, not offering any advice or comfort, but somehow the vast, indifferent coldness of the waters put my own little tribulations into perspective.

I’m looking forward to old age, so that I can remember with real clarity what I actually did in my youth. I realised this morning (trying to work out how many times I did that damned walk) that I can’t remember at all where I lived in my third year of university. Not possibly as odd as it sounds, as it was a four year course so things were bound to be a bit hazy here and there. Weren’t they?

But anyway, when I’m an old lady, I’m pretty confident all this stuff will come flooding right back, in technicolour detail. And then I can finally give my lovely friends an accurate tally of all the many, many times I took my pier walk. It was much more than twice, I know that even now.

St Andrews pier - if you look closely you can probably see me

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