Maybe it is because I have recently started running again. (For running read a slow attempt to reach the distance of 5km without stopping and without completely and utterly exhausting myself; in all honesty I could probably do it already… just about… but I’m lazy and by protracting the experience I will gain a totally fictitious sense of achievement which will sustain my fragile ego for a while. Yes it does feel like cheating but I will not dwell on that.  The algorithmic regime of my Garmin watch has allocated three running sessions a week to this, and my new, impressive looking running shoes will take me there. I’ll see you on the other side).

Maybe it is because the early morning Tuesday train was cancelled and I hade to take the even earlier early morning Tuesday train.

Maybe because all the awfulness that is going on in the world is so exhausting and maddening and frustrating and horrifying and bleak and hopeless.

But I am really tired. 

Tired ‘I’m getting a migraine’-tired. Tired ‘I can’t face taking the dog up the hill’-tired. That alone is very ‘tired’ because I love walking my dog.

We hit town instead. Me, the dog, his breakfast in a Tupperware and my iPad with some college reading, headed for the local dog-friendly cafe for an hour or so. It is called The Society Cafe and has excellent drinks, and fabulous vegan banana bread, or maybe it’s vegetarian… I can’t remember, but it is delicious.

The dog was ambitiously, and delusionally, expecting to get some of it and only got his dry kibbles instead. He was most displeased and sighed noisily and eloquently. There are times when, I swear, he’s more human than some human I know.

He tried giving me the ‘I’m such a perfect boy’ look from the other side of the table too, but I didn’t fall for it, even if he looked most handsome.

Afterward we walked home slowly, him nose down all the way, reading every inch of the pavement, every lamp post, every blade of grass. He is now snoring, exhausted by the urban sensory overload.

I might join him on the sofa. The migraine is real.