Disaffected

It hasn't been a great day off. I had it planned for gardening, but it's been showery and bitterly cold, with a biting wind, so I didn't fancy it outside and as a result I've been kicking about at a bit of a loose end. (That's a bit unfair on myself, as I did put in a morning of very useful housework).

Anyway, I ended up in the town, wandering about in and out of the shops, seeing lots of very nice things - but they were all too flimsy, too small or much too young for me, and so I got increasingly grumpy. No surprise there.

Staring out of the bus window on the way back home, there was a disaffected youth trudging along, slouched in his hoodie. And I thought - maybe I should get a hoodie. It would certainly chime with my mood. I've already got the ill-fitting jeans and the down-at-heel shoes, and the slouch gets pretty much universal as we all get older and more hunched, and scuff slowly along where once we would have strode fit and erect. We tend to mumble, and disapprove of pretty much everything, our social skills and pleasantries have gone all to pot, and why would it matter if the wires trailing from our ears ended in hearing aids rather than i-Pods? Why should only the young have a uniform of disaffection?

I'm sure that M&S, or Edinburgh Woollen Mill, could come up with a design in a tasteful plaid, with a nice snuggly fleece lining in the hood...

Mess

It's the breadboard that really bugs me. I clean up the kitchen, every Saturday morning, anti-clockwise from the table to the compost bucket, methodically, including clearing the crumbs off the breadboard into the garden for the birds. Then, with it all clear and tidy, off I go to do something else.

And when I come back, no matter how long or short a time it is, someone has been through and made toast, or a sandwich, and there is MESS on the breadboard, crumbs, smears of jam or mayo, a blunt knife with butter on it, a sharp knife as well sometimes, the stalk of a tomato, or a bit of cheese rind, just left.

So I clear it all up, wipe down the breadboard etc etc. Go back to whatever it was I was doing, or something else.

A bit later - yes, breadboard all messy again.

Drives me BONKERS.

Equinox

At last, the days are longer than the nights. The birds are starting to sing before the alarm goes off (noisy little buggers) and it isn't quite dark when I get home from work. There are frogs, and spawn, in the pond; the first daffodils are opening; and there are buds on the fruit trees. Everything is warm, and moving at last.

Hurrah!

Sorry for silence

A big apology to my loyal reader (that's you, Mrs Trellis of North Wales) for such a long gap between posts. I have been very preoccupied with a lot of things lately, most of them work-related but some of them domestic. I remember that back in November I was saying that everything would get better once Christmas was out of the way; now I am saying the same thing about Easter.

You see, it takes me quite a long time to deliver a blog post. I really don't think that life should be mistaken for art and I abhor the casual stream-of-conciousness type of utterance, all incoherent rant or rave on the spur of the moment. Nothing we say is without some kind of moderation - there is always the smallest of gaps between what we think and what we actually say, and it's no bad thing to stretch that gap before putting finger to keyboard. We all edit our feelings and our memories, sometimes to the extent that after a lapse of years we can no longer remember what did happen and what we wished had happened - we all re-work our experiences. I'm not a big fan of Wordsworth, but I can sign up to his definition of art (of poetry, in his case) as "emotion recollected in tranquility".

I'm not claiming the status of art for this blog or any of its posts, far from it, but I have been too busy in the experience recently to have time to recollect it. I will try to do better in future.

I don't run for buses any more

Any conversation I have at the moment seems to turn to the subject of retirement, old age, disease and death. Some people are really looking forward to retiring and some people who already are retired reckon they've never had it so good; others dread retirement as the beginning of the end, a slow decline into incapacity and indignity. I think it all depends upon your energy levels, physical and mental - if you have enough of both, then retirement is going to be great.

The trouble is, I think I am already slowing down. There are an awful lots of things nowadays that I just can't be bothered to do. Even things I have been looking forward to - holidays, outings - as they get closer turn from being treats to being chores, things which have to be done, and I look forward to the time when they are over and I am able to slide back into the familiar and undemanding routine.

Most of the time it is easier to do nothing - or at least, not to do anything today when there is always tomorrow. Why bother doing the ironing? After all, it isn't going to go anywhere, and I don't actually need any of it right now. Might as well have a sit down and a cup of tea and a biscuit instead. Why get on with that presentation I should be writing when I could as easily do a blog post, or play patience?

And it is the same with buses. Why lurch into an undignified run and get out of breath? Might as well assume indifference and stroll on, hoping there's another one behind it. But is this a mature and reasonable decision or just the first sign of old age?