Oh, hullo. Yes, it’s me, Robert. No, no, the other Robert. I was just — what’s that? Well, I don’t doubt at all that I look a bit confused — I am confused. I’ve lost my reading room, you see. I was sure it was right down here somewhere, but I think I may have given myself the same directions twice, and you know that never works. I really don’t know how I could have managed that — I was being especially careful.
Do you happen to know what year it is? Really? Oh.
Mmm — what calendar do you use? There are so many of them, I can never quite keep them straight in my head, and they all have different years that start at different times and have different numbers of days for everything — it’s quite confusing, even without keeping track of Great Years and Years of Years and all that. And that’s on this side of the Border. It’s even worse over there — time isn’t all the same length there, you know.
Hmm — I wonder if I messed up. . . . You do understand, don’t you, that the instructions must include at least four of the eleven directions, and I think I included yesterday in this set again, when it probably should have been tomorrow. Bother! I knew I shouldn’t have done it while I was in the Wood. I bet I was across the Border, and that throws everything off. The problem is, it keeps moving — the Border, I mean — so you can never really be sure.
Well, at least it’s only June, so I have time. What? Oh, dear — when did that happen? I’ve missed the entire summer? What’s that? You saw me here at Mabon? Here? In the Pub? But . . . oh, my. I thought that was next year.
I suppose I could just go to the Library, but my books are all in my reading room right where I put them, and finding the duplicates is always such a fuss. Iain gets quite put out with me — he says I should just pick a time and stay in it, and it’s not that I mean to wander around like that, but I get distracted, you see, and it’s so easy to get lost. And then we have to go through all the books that someone is thinking about writing, and all the ones that are going to be written, and the ones that might be written, and maybe the ones that no one wants to write, and sometimes even the ones that most definitely should not have been written, to find the advance copies of the ones that actually have been written so I can get copies of the ones I need.
And it’s so quiet in there I really can’t concentrate.
I suppose I’ll just have to find a Cat to follow. That’s the only thing I can think of, because I don’t have a minute to come up with some new directions. I really need to get caught up on my reading and find some time to do some writing.
Well, I’ll see you later. Whenever that is.
