The weekend was pretty quiet. My other half was sick – the side-effects of the covid vaccine. She tends to get floored by colds, so it was no surprise she had such an adverse reaction. I'm hoping I'll be ok when my turn arrives. She has improved each day, and is back at work today.
In-between working I'm throwing load after load of washing through the machine, trying valiantly to burrow my way to the bottom of the washing baskets. You realise just how boring your life has become when the appearance of sunshine and wind makes you think “I could get quite a bit of washing dry today!”.
I outmealed the Zack Snyder Justice League movie over the weekend. I'll be first in line to buy it when it's officially released – although very long, it's by far the best comic book movie so far. It's a huge shame that Warner Brothers have no interest in making any more. Henry Cavill is Superman. Ben Aflek is perhaps the best Batman there has been so far, and Gal Gadot is... well... she is Wonder Woman.
I do have some good news to share. My eldest daughter has a new job! She will be starting at the local outwards-bounds centre in a few weeks – helping with coordination, planning – that kind of thing. She'll initially be in charge of COVID measures. I imagine after Easter the world and it's dog will be itching to get back to “normal life”, so activity places will suddenly be overrun. I'm hoping she enjoys it.
I'm struggling to stay awake. I was up at 3am. My other half had her first COVID injection yesterday, and woke up in the middle of the night shaking like a leaf. She's been in bed all day. Apparently the shivers and flu-like lethargy are the most common side effects of the vaccine, and it looks like she's been hit pretty bad. I bought lucozade, paracetamol, and soup to get her through the next 48 hours. I guess we'll see how it goes.
Miss 17 has got dinner planned already – potato waffles, baked beans, and chicken nuggets. Not exactly the most healthy dinner ever, but nobody is going to complain.
The builders finished yesterday – we finally have a presentable house. We are no longer the slightly tatty looking house in the corner of the green. I can't call it “The Burrow” any more (the Weasley's house from the Harry Potter books). We just need to pay the bill now. There's a part of me that feels sorry for the birds that had been attempting to set up home in the eaves, but I also know there will no longer be any strange noises coming from the roof in the early hours of the morning.
I'm hoping this weekend will be quiet. A weekend filled with movies, books, and music. As the world wakes up, there are already rumblings about rugby practice – we need to enjoy the quiet while it still exists.
I headed into this week with quite some trepidation – unsure how I was going to make it through the mother of all task lists. Two days in, I'm starting to relax a little. The road ahead doesn't look quite as precipitous as first imagined. I do this a lot, by the way – stressing over things that I haven't started, and then switching into “one foot in front of the other” mode in order to cope. While others complain, flap, or question, I find putting one foot in front of the other tends to serve me well.
Tomorrow will be more of the same – more plodding, more furious scribbling in the bullet journal, more attempts to ignore the builders working on our house, and more wondering what the future might bring.
Earlier in the year I toyed with some online to-do-list applications, but ended up running back to the bullet journal with my tail behind my legs. I don't have to think when using a paper notebook and a pen – I just write things down – apparently more neatly than most. I've always found it quite surprising when others remark at my notebook pages – it's only writing.
I remember once while running a training course, somebody held my notebook up to the class and said “why does my writing not look like this?” – and a lady across the room quietly said “because he cares”.
Now if you'll excuse me, I suspect there might be half a bottle of wine hiding in the fridge, and some rubbish TV that needs watching. Time to switch off. Time to slow down.
This “falling off the blogging bike” business is getting worse. It's been three days without a post this time. I'm not really sure why either. Life I suppose. Life happened.
We went out for a walk yesterday – all five of us – for the first time in months. We visited Hughenden Manor, a local National Trust property, and walked the longest route around the grounds. It was good just to get out in the fresh air. We saw very few people along the way – most people seem to think “a walk” is a few hundred yards from their car. We ten to think in terms of several miles – preferably away from everybody and everything.
I spent most of this morning on the roof of the house cutting back brambles that had grown into the guttering. I cut my hands to pieces in the process, but there was a reason for it – builders arrive in the morning to begin replacing the soffits and guttering around the entire house. Another hole the size of meteor crater in our bank account.
Over the last year you might have thought we would get ahead in the bank – given that we haven't gone anywhere, or done anything. You would be wrong. One disaster after another has contributed to only just keeping our head above water for the entire year.
Perhaps the most unintentionally funny accident so far? Yesterday morning one of our kids “accidentally” flushed the button you press on the upstairs toilet to make it flush down the toilet. Therefore we will very likely have to replace the entire damn toilet.
Anyway.
It's my other half's birthday tomorrow (or today even – the clock just ticked past midnight). There is a stash of nice things hidden under my desk – expertly wrapped by the kids earlier today. Somehow we're going to try and get through breakfast and presents before the builders arrive.
I was hoping to write a few words last night, just like I had been planning to write a few words the night before. I planned to write a few words this morning too – and I suppose I am now – but the clock keeps ticking, and I find myself being pulled in several directions at once. The breakfast things are cleared away, the washing machine is on, the clothes dryer is up and running, and I'm hitting keys on the keyboard. I suppose that's writing, isn't it?
I thought I would have half an hour to write something, but one thing after another has cropped up – taking away minutes before I start my working day. I have a little over ten minutes left now. Once I start work, I have a problem to solve in some programming from yesterday. Something that's not working. I was thinking about it the moment I woke up this morning – I tend to do that – I almost unpacked my work laptop at midnight last night because I kept thinking about it.
I need to learn how to switch off better. For the last several months video games have been a pretty good avenue of distraction – perhaps once the vaccines have been rolled out I might go for a walk, and brave town once more. I've been stunned during the last year – despite desperate pleas from the government – at how many people put their own interests ahead of those of anybody else. They manufacture all manner of convoluted reasons, and don't seem to realise the few of us that have followed guidance just think they are colossal assholes now, and probably will forever more.
Anyway. Enough of the angry-pants idiocy.
I have to get my work laptop out, and start trying to solve this problem, if only to prevent myself from going insane. If you see nothing from me for the next 48 hours, it's most probably because I did an all-nighter working on it. Yes, I am that idiot.
I started writing this post an hour ago. I got as far as writing the date. Perhaps this is indicative of the world at the moment – slowing to a crawl. Pausing. Stopping.
I put several holiday requests in with work this afternoon – stretching out over the next five months. We are hoping to visit my parents in the summer. I haven't seen them for two years. We talk on the internet almost every week, but it's not the same.
I grew up near Oxford. When my parents retired they moved to the south west coast – where we spent many holidays as children. The connection with Cornwall started entirely by accident – while looking for somewhere to stay with a young family many years ago, my Dad stopped the car next to a lady walking from a farm entrance, and asked if he might pitch his tent in a farm field. By the next year the farm had set a field aside for camping, and a year later built a toilet block. I can't remember how many summers we spent there when I was young.
When visiting in the past we have felt life slowing down – the further we got from London. I suppose it might be different this time – the world has changed. We have already warned the kids that we may not make it to the beach – certainly not a popular beach. Although we will all be vaccinated against COVID by then, we don't want to push our luck.
We're hoping for a week of books, board games, peace, and quiet – holed up in my parents house for a few days. It will be good just to get away. Something to look forward to.
It's Mother's Day today in the UK. I bought a box of chocolates for my Mum, and had them delivered – she lives over two hundred miles away. There's a bit of a story though – I put the order in, and then realised I didn't change the delivery address – so my other half has lucked into the same chocolates too. I ordered them again, and changed the delivery address the second time.
I have no idea what the kids have arranged. I know Miss 17 is planning on cooking roast dinner this evening – I imagine I'll shadow her to save her from wrecking it. I have almost total confidence in her (roast dinner really isn't that difficult). Notice I said almost .
The kids were talking about going for a walk this morning. If they had gotten out of bed, there were clear skies and sunshine at about 8am. It's now 10:30, and the sky is slowly filling with dark clouds. They're not up yet. Apparently rain will arrive mid-afternoon.
We have a bird-box on the old apple tree at the end of the garden. A family of bluetits have set up home in it – they used it last year. They have been busy flying back and forth with sticks to build their nest. We looked for the binoculars yesterday to watch them, but couldn't find them. Another pair is on-order from Amazon – no doubt the old binoculars will now turn up, because that's how the universe works.
I wish I had something more exciting to share. Life seems to have been reduced to “things seen out of the window” over the last year. At least I'm still writing though, even if my words have been reduced to a trickle.
wp:image /wp:image While sending messages back and forth with a friend this morning, it struck me that life can be compared to a “choose your own adventure” book.
If you've never seen a choose your own adventure book, they were all the rage about forty years ago. You would read a passage from the book, leading to a decision for the reader to make about what the protagonist does next. Each potential action is listed out, with the page number to turn to in order to read what happens next.
Once you start thinking about the adventure book, you start wondering about the decisions you make during a typical day, week, month, or year. How might your life be different had you made different decisions?
I suppose this all loops back around to a book I received for my birthday – “The Midnight Library”, by Matt Haig. I have still to read it, but the synopsis is intriguing;
wp:quote
> Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?
>
> /wp:quote I'm looking forward to reading it, and find myself wondering if the universe has a strange habit of doing what it was going to do, regardless of our choices. Perhaps we end up broadly where we were going to be, regardless of how we get there.
I have been thinking this evening about the friends I have made around the internet during the time I have been writing an online journal. All sorts of people, from all over the world. Younger people, older people, different races, religions, cultures and backgrounds.
The written word is quite wonderful really – it has the ability to subtract physical appearance, wealth, and location – leaving the really important things on the table – thoughts, ideas, dreams, hopes and stories.
I've always been a sucker for a great story. When I have time to sit down and catch up with the various blogs I follow, I become enthralled with the stories. The everyday stories, experiences, and reflections. The small things.
Tolkien once wrote “it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay”. I think he was right. Through our shared stories we remind each other that we are not alone – that there are others like us out there. They might be half a world away, but the magic of the internet reduces that to a voice in our ear, a picture in our hand, and hope in our heart.
I'm also aware that I sometimes go for months without reaching out to those I have known for so long – months without letting them know that I still read, I still follow, and I still care. I need to work on that.
I've been sitting in the dark of the study with the word processor open in front of me for a few minutes – trying to organise my thoughts. Somehow a browser tab opened up in front of me, then another, and before I knew it half an hour had vanished. Browsers should come with warning stickers – “not for the easily distracted”.
/wp:image While sending messages back and forth with a friend this morning, it struck me that life can be compared to a “choose your own adventure” book.
I've been sitting in the dark of the study with the word processor open in front of me for a few minutes – trying to organise my thoughts. Somehow a browser tab opened up in front of me, then another, and before I knew it half an hour had vanished. Browsers should come with warning stickers – “not for the easily distracted”.