Dear Readers, there are many things that can  be discombobulating, but jet lag is right up there in the list of possible causes. What day/time is it again? What am I supposed to be doing?

Well, right up there with the list of things that I should be doing is revising for my Open University exam – it’s on Wednesday 4th June, so not very far into the future. But when I open my notes they might as well be in Sanskrit – my mind seems rather thinner than it should be, and all I can do is yawn. Never mind. I take myself outside for a walk around the garden, and notice the seedheads on the clematis. I’ve always loved them – my Mum used to call them ‘little hairdos’ but I’d never noticed that, actually, they go through a variety of stages. In the photo above, the one on the left is decidedly poodle-esque, while the one on the right has a more Afghan hound-ish look. Apparently, the  ‘tails’ of the seeds become fluffier as the seeds ripen, to allow the seed to travel further when it’s released, so the Afghan Hound is younger than  the Poodle. Also, one should also cut the seed heads off to encourage flowering. A bit too late, in  this case!

If the seeds have not been fertilised, there will be no little seedpod attached to the tail, so I will have to have a closer look. It’s very tempting to plant a few seeds, but they are unlikely to come ‘true’ (this clematis is one of the spring-flowering ones, not the ubiquitous ‘Freckles’  but something similar), and also they can take up to three years to germinate.

As I wander around, I note that the pond level has gone down by a good six inches in sunny weather, and keep my fingers crossed that one of the forecast thunderstorms dumps its water in East Finchley. Everything is a bit dry and breathless and on the verge of wilting. Including me! Time for a cup of tea, I think, and a bit of acceptance that the brain is not firing on all cylinders today, and I might just as well go and do something useful that doesn’t involve learning the insulin signalling pathway. Sometimes, giving up is not the worst thing in the world.

Incidentally, ‘discombobulate’ comes originally from the early 19th century in the USA – it’s a humorous word apparently based on ‘discomfit’ or ‘discompose’. And there is no antonym, i.e. ‘combobulate’. So now we know.