It really struck me this week, that days have lost their importance. Val said something about a “Monday morning feeling”, and my first reaction was “Is it Monday then?”
The routine of our life centres around the various animals – and in some senses they are more demanding than work ever was. Although the breeding llamas would wait for a few hours for their morning feed, there’s no way we could miss out a day. The chickens are impatient to be let out when it gets light – and I feel absolutely obliged to get up, put on wellies and go down to them. And at the end of the day, they need to be closed in when the sun sets . . . . .
I never miss a day going to the walking llamas, although I do allow myself the ‘luxury’ of sometimes not going till the afternoon. I guess they would be fine without a visit one day, and they do have plenty of food so they aren’t dependent in the same way as the breeders. But I know that llamas are very much creatures of routine (going to the same position for their food bucket, pausing each time at the same point on a walk because they can see back to the ‘home’ field, using a fixed toilet area) and we get drawn into the same patterns.
In fact, I am coming to the conclusion that humans and other animals are most comfortable when life has routines. We now are ‘closer to nature’ in that our routines are determined by the rising and setting of the sun, and in the longer term by the seasons, rather than by the ‘artificial’ constructs of work etc. I suppose that perhaps I am happier now because it’s not the arbitrary decision of someone else that rules my life . . . . but the equally arbitrary patterns of the universe.
Days of the week have nothing to do with nature. I’m rather glad I don’t have to think differently about Mondays. Mind you, it would be nice sometimes to just have a day off.
