Almost content

Monday, March 22nd., Villa des Nefliers, Fontainebleau.

I am half way through Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" which, surprisingly, I have not previously read. I don't know what to make of it. Is it to be taken at face value? Is it a subtle critique of social mores, colonialism, class, progress ...? I sense that it is a joke but one to which I either lack the necessary background or am too constrained to appreciate. I do not dislike it, and will finish it, but I am perplexed.

Change of weather last night. Today, first day of Spring, twelve kilometres in the forest. Through too much work I have slept badly for several nights, which upset my digestion. Still my output is enormous. Pleasure in being in the country increases. Yet, a certain dissatisfaction, an expectancy, behind the content. Probably this will always be there, wherever I am and whatever I am doing.

The vernal equinox. Time to set aside this journal of commonplace matters, which musty not becomw a burden, in favour of more time out of doors. Time to walk, and to breathe. To savour the burgeoning forest. No doubt I will make the occasional entry when there is something of consequence to be written. And Autumn will come around soon enough.