Sticking with GANTOB’s rules imposed for my Birthday blog for a moment, I need to announce the winners of the Snip, Stick, Solve competition (see earlier blogs, Instagram or X for background). The overall winner, with an innovative glass table approach was DaftBrand. Highly commended runners up were LoopManiac, Missiformation and Andrew. A brave effort was received from one other applicant, but they were three centuries out.
After careful consideration, we are not going to share the solution (to avoid spoilers), but all applications will receive a prize tailored to their specific answer – especially for them. The unsuccessful applicant appears to be expecting an acknowledgement of their labours, under difficult circumstances. They should be so lucky, though I feel for them.
Which discharges my duties to GANTOB for another blog, and allows me to get back to more important business.
This morning I arose groggily, but still managed breakfast and departed the flat on schedule.
A snail crunched under foot as I opened the gate. The remains cringed under the fragments of shell. I wiped my shoe on the grass, avoiding the fox excrement that has been appearing on the lawn over recent weeks, though greatly diminished by the recent downpours. Scraping the now still tail of the snail up with a piece of slate I started on my way again, thinking about happier times in the summer when the snails had appeared, as if by magic, all over the wallflower that had run rampant on the other side of the path, by the bins.
It was only when I was climbing the recently re-opened Playfair Steps up the Mound that I realised that I had left my briefcase behind at the flat. I patted down my pockets to reassure myself that I had at least a pen and piece of paper, so I could take notes while at National Library of Scotland. I would text home to ask for my sandwiches to be retrieved (before the cat found them hopefully) and put in the fridge. But of course my phone was in my case.
I descended one flight and then another, before deciding that I really needed to get on with the day. Perhaps my sandwiches would be alright, cool enough on the flagstones in the hall. I climbed to the top, more breathless than usual, wheezy. Is this what it is going to be like to be 83?
THE BENEFAKTOR
10 October 2023
GANTOB blog 