wordsmith.social/jonbeckett

Being away from my family is strange. You would think I would sleep more heavily in a room on my own, but the opposite has been true this week – usually up before the sun, making breakfast and coffee for my parents.

Last night I had checked the weather forecast and planned a walk down to the ocean in the early morning sunshine. While the weather failed to cooperate, a little after breakfast I still found myself on the beach. The route follows a couple of miles through quiet lanes and farm tracks – I didn't see a single soul.

After wandering the beach for twenty minutes or so I walked home – and grinned while approaching the house that it was still not 9am. How time doesn't fly when you're away from the usual chaos and mayhem of family life.

While at the beach I remembered years past – visiting with friends and family – and wondered how many generations have done the same. The ocean slowly reclaims the coast. I have read accounts of a small parish here that vanished beneath the waves perhaps a hundred years ago – of a village green with dancing and music in the summer. All of it long gone. I looked out on the slow rolling waves and wondered if they remember.

When I was young there was a cottage on one side of the bay – it's remains are now long gone – the cliff it once stood on shattered among the strata that breaking waves now wash smooth.

Time is a strange thing. We are here for moments, and we leave little behind. I found myself wondering what the lives of the people that onced danced on that village green were like. What they yearned for and what made them happy. I wondered if they might have really been that different than generations past or yet to come.

Anyway.

It's probably coffee o'clock. And time to ask my Dad what he might like for lunch.

I cut my Dad's hair this morning. He sat in a chair in the middle of the lounge while I figured out how to use his hair clippers. He received the same all-purpose haircut I give myself – although not quite as short as I go. My Mum stood over me throughout, expecting me to decapitate him or something. At the end she remarked how much more quickly I did it than when she does – I'm not quite sure how anybody could take more than a few minutes to clipper somebody's hair off.

He's a little better again today – although there are still moments when he doesn't know what to do with himself. I don't envy the endless stream of tablets he's taking either. I don't think he'll be back to any kind of normal for several months but at least he's through the worst of his ordeal (fingers crossed).

For dinner this evening I made baked potatoes with a salad, and used the leftover chilli from earlier in the week. Everybody cleared their plate, so I must have done something right. Tomorrow night's meal will be chicken curry. I'm not sure what we'll do on Friday night yet – we'll figure it out when we get there, I suppose.

After being holed up in my parents house for the last few days, I'm going slightly stir-crazy. Now I know my Dad is on the mend I'm going to escape for a couple of hours tomorrow (if the weather is nice) and walk down to the sea. The walk is fairly steep, passing through farmland as it winds it's way down. It's about a two mile walk each way.

Note to self – must check the tide times.

In other news, inbetween making meals, washing up, and helping stop my Mum from fussing today I crossed path with a kindred spirit on the internet, and the world has seemed a little bit smaller and a little bit more friendly this evening. Long may it continue.

Life happens so more slowly down here. It has taken some time to adjust – to slow myself down. Yesterday morning, after making breakfasts, washing up, and racing through some chores I found myself at a loose end. Today I'm settling into it a little more.

Of course I'm really here to make life easier for my Mum. Dad has slept a lot each day so far – no doubt the result of the cocktail of drugs he is on. He's getting better each day though – little by little. This evening we are ordering food in for the first time this week – essentially me letting my parents off the hook before I cook again tomorrow.

For lunch I re-heated the leftover bolognese from earlier in the week. I think pasta meals always taste better the next day – the sauce thickens up and becomes proper comfort food.

It's very strange – being out of the loop with the rest of my life going on several hundred miles away. Even though I've worked from home – via the internet – for the last couple of years, I have still been in a busy household with my daughters coming and going, or heading into town running errands most days. My parents live a much more secluded life – away from nearby towns, and rarely visiting them. I'm not sure I could ever get used to it.

Earlier today I looked in on my work email account to make sure I'm not needed for anything too urgent. Later this afternoon I'm joining an online meeting with my daughter's college teacher to find out how well she's doing. It feels like reaching out to normality.

While making meals, doing chores, and talking with my parents, the television is ever-present in the background. You don't realise you've started watching it with them until you suddenly realise you've become invested in the story of an animal rescue worker on the streets of San Francisco that has found a cat that went missing from Florida seven years previously.

Daytime television is a strange sort of placatory drug – that teaches nothing while acting as the vehicle for an avalanche of advertisements about life insurance, pensions, and healthcare.

This morning I defrosted the freezer in the garage so my parents can order frozen meals to get them through the next several months without having to worry about cooking. There is a company we have used at home when pushed that deliver good quality frozen food. It turns out they can deliver to my parents house. Huge win.

I'll write more later – I need to start thinking about making dinner. My Dad has a pretty strict routine with the various tablets he is taking, so I'm having to work around that with meal times. I'm making chilli tonight.

(An hour passes while I go on a magical mystery tour through the cupboards to find long grain rice – it turns out my Mum has no system at all for storing things, but knows exactly where things SHOULDN'T go – and she doesn't mind telling you).

Dinner is done! Everybody clean plated again, so I must have got something right. We have enough left over to make baked potatoes with chilli later in the week. Apparently tomorrow night we're ordering something to be delivered. I wonder how I can ensure that whatever gets delivered is at least a little healthy?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm on call to make another cup of tea before finding somewhere quiet to sit down with my book.

After meeting my brother at the railway station yesterday afternoon we immediately detoured to a grocery store so I could pick up the ingredients to make meals over the next few days. Healthy meals.

Tonight I made a vegetable version of bolognese and must have done something right because everybody clean-plated. We had enough left over for a couple of lunches in the week – mostly because I'm used to cooking for a family of five. I think somehow I'll be helping re-write the grocery delivery order tomorrow morning – adding fruit, green vegetables, and juice.

It's been an interesting stay so far. The biggest struggle has been to stop my Mum helping. I'm here so she gets a rest – but trying to stop her is... challenging. I get it. I will probably always be the same with my children. Somehow I managed to keep her out of the kitchen long enough this evening to get the meal cooked before she could offer any input. I wonder if I'll be able to achieve the same tomorrow?

We're having beef chilli tomorrow night.

My Dad is on the slow road to recovery. He's not allowed to do too much and is on a cocktail of tablets, but is doing well. I'll let him have a cheat night or two in terms of food later in the week – for the moment I just want to get some half-decent food into him.

We're drinking cups of tea at a frightening rate. I don't think I've boiled the kettle so many times in a single day ever before.

Anyway.

That's all I really have to share. I'm taking each day as it comes, and seeing what the next day brings. That's all I really can do. Feel free to message me (details are in the about page) – I'm here all week!

I'm currently sitting on a train, watching the world hurtle past at quite some speed. After hiding in the junk room for the better part of two years toiling away on work projects, I'm re-locating to the coast for a week to help my parents. On my own.

This journey came about a little over a week ago when my father was admitted to hospital – my brother travelled down from the north to stay with them this week – I'm taking over for the next week – doing chores, cooking meals, making cups of tea, listening to stories, and helping in any way I can.

Fingers crossed, the journey has been uneventful so far. Trains have been on time, and connections have been as predicted. The journey would have been swift if not for engineering works along the way necessitating a “replacement bus service” for an hour of the route. I still have that hurdle to come – in an hour or so.

At Reading station I found myself with half an hour between trains so sought out a quiet waiting room – partially filled with people quietly reading books or with their noses buried in phones. They were all socially distanced, and all wearing face masks. That story changed when a train full of travelling football fans arrived that had been drinking all morning (I encountered them at 9:30am). None of them had face masks, and many of them were already drunk. Several of those I encountered were carrying plastic bags full of beer bottles. It doesn't paint a great picture of football, does it.

It's at times like these I'm glad my daughters play rugby. That said, our youngest received tickets for Christmas to watch England Ladies play later in the year – thankfully the experience of visiting their games is nothing like watching the mens team. The stadium will be filled with families, and few if any armies of neanderthal lunatics.

I still have an hour to go on this part of the journey. I packed the Kindle, the Fire tablet, and a paper book. I will not get bored. I've been reading “The Circle” by Dave Eggers recently – that was made into a truly awful movie with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson a few years ago. The book is a LOT better than the movie so far. I've also got the follow-up book “The Every” to read. If you've not heard of them, go search them out – just don't watch the movie.

If I get through both books I also have “Snowcrash” waiting in the wings. I started reading it last summer but didn't get very far – my main recollection was that the author tried far too hard in the first few chapters, but then settled down into a readable story. I hate it when writers do that – try to appear clever, or wordy, or impenetrably “hip”. They invariably let the mask slip after a while and their true voice, or style comes through, but it's terrible hard going until you get through their attempt to piss the highest.

Anyway. This post has gone on for far too long already. I'll attempt to post this in a few minutes via the sporadic mobile internet connections the train is hurtling through.

Wish me luck!

Tomorrow morning I leave for the coast. After a short walk to the local railway station I will board a succession of trains and buses that will (hopefully) deliver me to deepest, darkest cornwall by mid-afternoon.

My bags are packed – filled with enough clean clothes to see me through the next week before reversing the journey next Saturday.

I'm taking the Kindle rather than any paper books, and my “little laptop that could” (a hand-me-down that is just about capable of posting to the blog). After so many months coccooned in the study at home, it will be nice to escape for a few days – even if the primary purpose of my visit is to run errands, do chores, and so on.

My other half decided that going to the pub for dinner was a very good idea this evening, given that I won't be here next week. I think this had more to do with her having a rubbish day at work than me going away, but I'm not going to complain.

I'm starving. I might have to go sneak something from the kitchen before we go out later.

(half an hour passes, while I make a sandwich, and then return and fall into a deep internet rabbit hole, reading about the production of the movie “Wargames”). If you have an enquiring mind, access to the internet is like pouring petrol on a fire.

I suppose I should go and put a smart top on if we're going to the pub.

Somehow there is only an hour of the working day left, and I find myself in the curious position of not having stopped at all yet. You might think – working from home – that I would be afforded all the opportunities in the world to procrastinate, but no. I'm not that clever.

After throwing a sandwich together at lunchtime, I joined a call with a colleague ahead of a stream of meetings, and ate while talking. He laughed as I ate as quickly as possible in order to talk while walking him through things on my screen.

The entire day has been a bit like that, as was yesterday.

I filed a leave request earlier for next week – meaning I'm officially “not working” while visiting my parents. Get ready for a deluge of blog posts the like of which this blog has not seen for quite some time.

I'll take the little laptop with me, and write while travelling. I have no idea how long it's battery lasts – I suppose I should check that.

(Five minutes pass while I pull the laptop out of my bag and give it a drink of electricity – it's battery is very, very flat).

The kindle is also on charge.

Guess who will begin searching out clean clothes this evening, before running the washing machine to destruction when he discovers a distinct lack of anything vaguely presentable that might have made it through the wash recently.

Oh.

In other news, I took my youngest daughter to the doctor this morning. After sleeping for two days and looking like a Dementor had paid her a visit, we decided to get her checked out. Tonsilitis. Wonderful. She's now on even more antibiotics. It's been a pretty rubbish few months for her – fingers crossed she's better soon.

It transpires that re-arranging your work schedule to fit around an unexpected visit to the coast is more possible than one might have expected. After endless meetings, discussions, and handing off of work it would appear a path has been cleared for me to board a train next weekend and disappear for a few days.

I'll need to retrieve the trusty travel case from the loft that accompanied me to Germany and back so many times. It might be an idea to purchase some train tickets too.

(Five minutes pass while I acquire said tickets via the magic of the internet)

Hopefully travelling outside the school holidays means the trains will be quieter than normal – by that I mean perhaps the chance of a seat, rather than sitting on my own luggage in the doorway of a carriage, as I have so many times in the past.

I still remember the time I took the children to visit on the train when they were young. We booked a table with four seats. When we got on the train we discovered somebody else in our seats – I showed them my ticket. Somebody else was sitting in their seats. I found them and explained. Somebody else was sitting in their seats. This went on for some time. I gave up in the end, and a kind gentleman volunteered his seat so I might sit with one of my daughters, while the other two sat on their own a short distance away.

Anyway.

Time to go make a coffee, sit down, and catch up with friends. It's been too long.

It's funny how life throws curve-balls at you from time to time, isn't it. Just as everything seems to be plodding along in a fairly straight line for a while, wallop – a pizza delivery truck slams into your daily routine.

My Dad has been in hospital for the last several days. Nothing life threatening, but enough to cause my parents to start thinking about the wisdom of living several hundred miles away from us all – or even several miles from the nearest town or village.

They live on the south coast – near a place we spent many summers when I was young. Two hundred and fifty miles away. Five hours in a car, four hours in a train and a taxi.

Given that my Dad will need time to recover, and my Mum isn't strong enough to help him around the house, my brother has travelled down today and will work from their house this week. I will travel down at the end of the week, and spend the next week with them. I'll be ordering groceries, cooking meals, tidying up – just helping really. Being there.

I've offered to take our eldest daughter with me – she's a pretty good cook, and is great at getting chores done. She hasn't made her mind up yet.

I'm not sure if it will be a holiday yet – I may well take my work laptop with me, and continue with several ongoing projects while I'm there. Plans may have to change. We'll see.

Fingers crossed the next week goes well, and he at least returns home from hospital.