May time

The Proust and madeleines in the previous post inevitably made me think of time passing. A La Recerche du Temps Perdu was titled Remembrance of Things Past for the publication of its first translation into English by C K Scott Moncrieff - with later revisions, this was changed to the more literal In Search of Lost Time. No matter, both capture the essence of the book, which is looking back and trying to understand in retrospect the complexities of history and human nature - the natural world, too, and the artist's role in helping others to see it in new ways. 

There's nowhere quite like England in a warm, bosky May. I've been doing very little work, I'm afraid, and plenty of walking out into drifts of bluebells and paths lined with cow parsley. And remembering too, because our daughter's going through it now, that this is exam time. For years and years, I couldn't see the candelabra blooms on the horse chestnut trees without having a clench at the stomach at the thought of important exams, even years after the event.

But I found a packet of old photos the other day, marked Cambridge, May/June 1983. Not I needed any kind of prompt to remembering exactly where and when they were taken - and in fact the top two were taken the previous year. But the party one was after Finals at one of the stream of celebrations that went on until we graduated at the end of June - there's the Pantomime King looking naughty, and the sheer relief on my face is palpable. And if either of us had had the faintest clue we'd still be together all these years later, I'm sure we would have run a mile there and then! 

(If reference to the Pantomine King has you baffled, please see this post: Periwinkles and Pantomine.)