Конец дедлайна и яблочный пирог (En)

The last few weeks since I came back from Cromer weren’t the easiest: I was under my usual (mostly inner) pressure to come up with a decent revision of my paper, which means a lot to me. As all my colleagues know very well, the struggle with your own writing that must be revised and then re-submitted (sometimes just a little bit, at other times the changes are extensive), is real: we all sink into the same abyss of anxiety and, yes, procrastination, but the closer the deadline, the clearer it is to us that the only thing to do is to sit and write.

So there: my own slightly more relaxed times in those days were the evenings when L. and I took long walks around our area, no matter the weather. We are so used to our night wanderings now that both of us are thinking with a bit of regret about the coming winter, as the nights are getting longer and rainier. But yes, I am exactly that type of person whose mental activity can be somehow dependant on those long and shallowly pointless strolls: while talking to L. and exchanging some ideas with him, I feel it helps me to find the path I could follow in my writing exercises later.

So, we went, and walked, and every time just before our last turn to our own street, we spotted that cardboard box with freshly picked apples, with the same sign (was it there or did my imagination play a trick and invent it?) “help yourself: it’s free.” Once there were two apples, on the next day three of them, and within four or five days I took at least a kilo and a half. Seemingly, nobody else were interested: we have always found the box full, and it felt at the end as if it was left for us alone.

I picked up some apples, and I re-wrote my stuff. The apples were a bit sour and had this unmistakably recognisable aroma of August. Most of them now part of this apple pie, which I make at the start of every apple season, and it also boosts my mind to produce one or two fruitful (awful pun intended) ideas.

The pie was nice, and today I re-submitted my paper. August is here, weirder than usual, but generous.