Category: Wind in the Willows

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Bother

Why do I bother? God knows. I haven’t got a clue.

I did another of the five items on the list yesterday – and a bit of another (sorting out my accounts, which is going to be a long job), and had a stab at another (renewing the insurance on my van) but got stymied by the technology, because I thought I could renew it online, but couldn’t see how, so now I don’t know if it will renew automatically or if I have to call them – which reminds me that the van itself is a can of worms, because I need to call the garage – but I don’t want to use it at present anyway.

You’ll notice there are still five items – I haven’t added any more, although I keep thinking of them, but I never remember to write them on the list. However, I did do last night’s washing up when I got up, and tidied and wiped the kitchen counters and sink (again). We’ll see how long that lasts.

I made a plan yesterday evening that if I was awake early enough this morning I would walk to the beach and watch the sunrise, but I slept in till 5.20, so there wasn’t time to get myself sorted and to the beach before the actual sunrise at 5.37.  And although I don’t really like lying in bed when I know I won’t get back to sleep, I still don’t want to get up either, even now, when it’s warm.

This is why I’ve decided that routine is so important, because if I know what I ‘should’ be doing, maybe that will push me (‘motivate’ is too strong a word) into doing things even when I really don’t feel like it (which is about 23 hours and 55 minutes of every day). Given that I’ve got quite good about doing my half hour of exercise and meditation, and writing my 500 words of drivel, over the last few months, I’m hoping that maybe I can squeeze some more useful and positive habits into my days.

I’ve given some thought in the past to how to get over the problem I was talking about yesterday, of never knowing where I’ve left things. One solution would be to constantly scan every room for anything which isn’t in its ‘specific place’ and return it so I can find it when I need it again – the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I guess that’s what most non-cahotic (I like that typo, I think I’ll leave it) people do automatically – but the idea fills me with horror and deadens my soul. There wouldn’t be time for anything else, would there? But then if it actually worked, wouldn’t it save the time and stress of constantly searching for things? I think of my spirit animal, Mole from The Wind in the Willows, throwing down his paintbrush and running out into the springtime to cries of ‘Bother!’ and ‘Oh blow!’ and ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’

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Reading (Part 2)

On any normal Monday… I’d be getting out of the pool around now. Except that it wouldn’t be a normal Monday, it’s Bank Holiday – not that that makes much difference to me. Five years ago (261 weeks) it was Bank Holiday, and I had breakfast at Rocksby’s, sitting outside on the prom, watching the sea and the boats and the Isle of Wight across the water and marvelling that I was here and how exciting it all was, never mind all those boxes I had to unpack. Rocksby’s is gone now, or rather, the basic structure and a couple of the staff are still there, but even when it’s open, it’s not the same, and the bacon sandwiches are terrible. Everything changes.

I rang my brother yesterday, it’s a thing we’ve done on and off over the years since I’ve been on my own, ringing each other on the first Sunday morning of the month. It’s been a bit erratic over the last couple of years while I’ve been going to writers’ group on Sundays, but as he said last month, now he knows where to find me on Sundays (or any other day). I told him that I’m enjoying not having to go out and interact with people, and he said something like: ‘that must be a blessing’ which was such an unusual word for him to use that I had to ask him to repeat it. But it’s a good word, appropriate, because yes, I have been feeling blessed, living in my cosy, stress-free bubble.

I told him I’d thought of him because on Saturday I heard a play on the radio about the life of Arthur Ransome, who wrote the Swallows and Amazons books, which I know he loved, and his daughters loved, and my sister loved too, though to be honest I was never all that interested in them (though I didn’t say that to him). It was one of those things that my two elder siblings did that I felt I should do as well (like staying married to the same people for fifty years), but didn’t really appeal to my nature.

That got me thinking about the kind of books I did read in childhood, and at first I could only think of Narnia and The Wind in the Willows. Partly, I realised, that was because they predominantly came from the library, we didn’t have many books of our own and the ones we did were mainly Ladybird and Observer books, things like that, vaguely educational. It’s not that Mum and Dad didn’t read books, they did (though, as I realise now, it’s not always so easy for adults to find the time), but they also got them from the library – books weren’t a high priority for spending limited cash, when there was an abundant supply which could be borrowed, and were reserved for birthday and Christmas presents.

My preference in books was always magical, which I may come back to another time.