My faith in Darwin

My chauffeuring duties hit an all time high this morning as all three of the other family members had important early rendezvous with trains and school, and they were subjected to a nail biting longer than usual journey driven by someone bad tempered, who can’t see very well at all in her glasses in the dark, especially through a frosty windscreen.
It was worth it when I got home and went out with Porridge at dawn.

I took this picture before the sun was properly up and was just a promise. I felt as though I really was walking on a planet spinning in space and that Porridge and I and the rest of our living earth really had evolved from the same little blob of snotty stuff that was our common ancestor billions of years ago (I am a scientist, so you may wish to skip the technical jargon). Feeling something is the truth isn’t the same as knowing it. It is much more intoxicating. I wonder if that is what happens when people believe things that are impossible to prove and intellectually ludicrous, not concerning themselves with the knowing bit. Seductive isn’t it?
I have found the joy of believing facts, and I am not letting go of it. If you have some new facts for me, I will be happy to believe them too.
This might even help me survive the Christmas ordeal.

Porridge brought me back from my communion with the universe when she met an unwary jogger. He had unwisely chosen his moment to jog past when he and Porridge were out of my line of sight in the trees. I only became aware of them both when I heard wild and desperate cries of “au pied” (or “heel” to you Anglophones) coming from the corner.
He’ll be lucky, I thought.
Porridge did actually come in response to the whistle because I have some enormous new tasty dog treats that seem to have the same irresistible effect on her as a line of cocaine has on a rock star. The jogger jogged on, too annoyed to speak, muddied but unbowed…and covered in large paw prints.

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It is evening now, and I would like to know what is going on. Is the end of the world nigh or something like it? The sky is ripping open and everything behind it is spilling out. This is sunset at the top of the hill by the calvaire.

And here is the whole of the sky: