distant early morning

Days when I leave Wimbledon at the crack of dawn and end up in Los Angeles with half of the day still to happen are completely surreal.  Here's the kitchen at - look at the carriage clock - 6.10, in a dull light.  Many of these objects are dear to me - I'll single out, on the bottom shelf of te little shelves to the immediate left of the window, a Quaker Oats bowl, that used to be my father's breakfast bowl when he was little.  The shelves themselves belonged to Mary Taylor's family - she was the friend of Charlotte Bronte who moved to New Zealand.  Yorkshire connections ...

And then, at 6.20, I was touched when Simba appeared.  He doesn't normally get up this early - prefers to wait a couple of hours, until my parents are stirring (although, even more touchingly, my mother emerged to wave me into a cab ten minutes later).  But this morning was an exception.