A day of three photographs. This morning I found a photograph of my paternal grandfather as an eight year old boy. I was astonished to find that it was me staring out of the picture. If I look into those eyes, it is undoubtedly me that I see. I have a photograph of me at the same age, and the two are indistinguishable.
This is particularly remarkable as I have never noticed any similarity before, and photographs of us in later life could not be more different.
But then a small part of me is my grandfather - a dubious kind of ongoing existence that we confer on those who came before us.
The third photograph was of my mother. This sits in pride of place in the saloon. I often find myself looking at this picture, talking to my mother. In this case it does not feel like a link with the past, but part of my ongoing present.
What it all means, I know not. Beyond the fact that to any outside oberver your diarist, a man of nominally sound mind and body, was to be found today talking to himself, and staring deep into the eyes of distantly departed relatives.
"Assume the virtue."
