Cally is a big black Labrador, a dog who failed as a guide dog for being too friendly. Looking Cally in the eye, this evening recalled a blogger with whom I would once correspond.

Kerryview last posted in 2019. It was just a single line, “After a number of years of hiatus, the black dog has moved on. ‘I’ll be back’ was all he said.”

Maybe my own black dog is more easily tamed in the springtime. The approach of the equinox means it is now a better time to be in the Northern hemisphere.

In former times, when being wealthy one day was still a dream, the idea of switching hemispheres at the equinoxes seemed attractive – France from March to September and Australia from September to March.  No more grey Novembers; no dim, dark days of Christmas; no January blue Mondays; no searching for signs of spring in February.  A recurrent dream was waking in the early hours of a January morning to see bright sunshine all around.

Perhaps the darkness of the days is no more than an excuse; an attempt at rationalisation; a seeking after an explanation of why the world at times seems grey and far away and why no task seems simple.  There can equally be moments in May or June when lightness is as difficult to find; when a heavy fog fills all perspectives.  Sometimes, the clouds will break and beams of sunshine will transform the greyness; but, just as quickly, the chinks will close over and the weighed down feeling will return.

Retrospectively, chunks of time appear under a shadow.  Perhaps it was because little happened to mark the passing of the days, like low lying land beyond a hill, weeks and months would disappear beyond some major event.

Life never turned out as might have been hoped, but, on the whole, things are not so bad. The objective realities of life are a dream compared to friends in Rwanda.  The problem lies in perceptions and the perceptions are shaped by chemical balances, or imbalances. If it is a matter of chemical processes within the brain, then the way to adjust those processes is to keep taking the tablets. “Plenty of exercise” advised the one half reasonable pastoral response; much wiser advice than plenty of glasses from a bottle.

Life can be coped with as something no worse than an overcast day. Moments, like black thunderstorms on August days in France, still strike; a mood of happiness can be replaced a minute later by a deep despondency. Most times, though, it is manageable.

I hope Kerryview is out there somewhere.