Category: television

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Five Hundred Words

What can I say today that I haven’t said a million times before?

Every day: get up at seven (or thereabouts), feed cat and open the door for her to go out; half an hour of yoga, tai chi and meditation; shower; make coffee; come up here and write 500 words; brush teeth; get dressed; have breakfast while doing su doku. That gets me to any time between 10:30 and 12:00. At one o’clock on weekdays, there’s an hour of crime-and-thrillers drama on Radio 4 extra, so I sit in my armchair in the bay window overlooking the street (but behind the hedge) and listen to that, while crocheting the previous day’s weather blanket square. At two, I may get lunch (if I haven’t had it before one), or stay where I am and listen to whatever’s on next, then at three there’s another hour of a drama serial, and at four, some days I switch over to Radio 4 and listen to what’s on there, until PM comes on at five, which I usually listen to also. At weekends the routine is slightly different, as the drama on the radio doesn’t start till three, and then there’s an hour on Radio 4 followed by another hour and a half (Saturday) or hour (Sunday, followed by Poetry Extra, which I also listen to). At six I go into the kitchen and prepare, cook and eat dinner, then around seven I usually go back in the front room, switch the telly on, and knit or crochet till around ten, when I make hot chocolate, listen to music, and carry on either knitting/crocheting or reading until bedtime (between eleven and eleven thirty).

There are variations, of course, usually involving going out to the shops in the morning. Otherwise, that’s pretty much it – but I don’t want you to think that I’m saying my life is boring, not a bit of it. I like this routine. The ‘activities’ (if you can call them that) are all – well, mostly – things I enjoy doing. It’s an undemanding life. Nobody needs me for anything, I’m not required to interact or communicate with any other human being (mostly), I can just trundle along letting each day go by, like I used to when I was travelling.

But a comment on Facebook yesterday raised the question: What is the point of any of this? The comment was made about something specific (posting pictures daily on FB) but it applies to everything, and it throws a stark light on the fact THAT MY LIFE, THE THINGS THAT I DO, ARE ALL COMPLETELY POINTLESS.

I didn’t deliberately make that phrase upper-case – I was just typing away as I usually do, looking at the keyboard instead of the screen, then looked up (because I wanted to delete something I’d written after that) and realised I must have accidentally pressed caps lock. So I’m not trying to emphasise that sentence, it just emphasised itself, which seems appropriate.

And now – oh look – 500.

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Compensations of Reading

I don’t want to write today. I have nothing to say that I haven’t said a million times before, only the shit I think of every morning.

A while back I thought I would write about the Madwoman in the Attic, but I never did. What are the other things I’ve thought I might write about? I have a file with a list of quotes from my posts where I’ve started a new train of thought near the end of the 500 words and then I think – I’ll come back to that – so I copy and paste it into this table. But the only time I look at it is when I have something to add, and those seem to come in clusters, there’ll be a few close together and then I’ll forget about it again for months.

One day maybe, I’ll go back and read everything I’ve written and it will make a kind of sense, a picture of who I am and my life and my feelings and thoughts. Really? A kind of sense? Or just a god-awful mess?

I know, I know, it’s a shitty time of year, I’ve said that before, I’ve hated this time of year for ages – and no, it’s not just because I’m on my own – anyway, I’m not, I have my kids and grandkids.

Anyway, saying that is just too simplistic. This dread I’m feeling is no different really from the dread I always get before I have to do something, go somewhere, even when I’m going out in my camper van. I don’t want to have to pack, I panic when I know that I have to choose clothes for several days. I don’t want to have to sort out the house ready to leave it for a few days, with a virtual stranger coming in every day to feed the cat. I don’t want – god help me – to wrap presents. And I don’t want to drive to Bedford, but I definitely don’t want to go by train.

I want to get lost inside a book. I want that total absorption that only reading a good book can provide – but I have to ration myself because I have things to do. Even radio isn’t such a good substitute, and as for telly – I don’t know why I dislike it so much, and yet I still watch it every evening. I’m not even talking about the quality of the content – it’s something inherent in the technology, it’s too busy, it demands too much attention but somehow simultaneously it’s too distracting so my brain can’t focus on it and gets bored with trying to take it in and wanders off, and then I find I’ve missed something and get frustrated. Maybe it’s a dyspraxic thing. It happens with reading sometimes too, but in general I’d say reading is much more satisfying. This is why I managed without telly quite happily for ten years, but somehow I’ve got sucked back into relying on it.

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More about Reading

There were two points I intended to make yesterday, and I don’t think I got round to either of them.

The first was about reading in general. A few months ago (when lockdown seemed like a temporary thing which would soon be over), there were suggestions going round on social media about how to make the most of your time, improve your wellbeing and cope with the changed circumstances. Often these were in the form of lists (spend some time in the open air; eat healthily; wear your nice clothes, that sort of thing), and one suggestion frequently included was: ‘read a book.’ This sort of advice irritates me because, well, reading a book is something to be done for the sheer joy of it, because it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures (or can be), not something you ‘should’ do because it’s worthy, and then afterwards you can tick it off a list and feel smug about yourself. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t engage with ‘Goodreads’, or join book groups. Yes, I know, I know, this is just me being grumpy, curmudgeonly and intolerant of other people’s choices. But the idea of something which feels so essential to me being treated as a kind of challenge to be met and then worn as a badge of honour sticks in my throat (which I know is grossly unfair and judgemental on the people who do go on Goodreads and join book groups).

Anyway, enough of that rant, because however much I love reading, I don’t do it nearly as much these days as I used to. When I do get properly stuck into a good book I remember how wonderful it is, and think: ‘why don’t I do this more often’ and really, why don’t I? It’s not as if there are so many more important calls on my time (well, maybe there are, but I’m quite good at ignoring them). That said, I do get two hours a day of audio drama from the radio (more if I download things from BBC Sounds) – and I can crochet at the same time. But however great the BBC’s available repertoire, it can’t match the stacks of books, unread or re-readable, on the shelves in my study.

Then there’s the telly (which I watch for between two and four hours most evenings). There was a time, in the early 2000s, when I gave it up altogether. We had a big house with a living room and sitting room either side of the front door, and in the evenings Hubby would sit in the former watching the box while I sat in the latter, either listening to radio drama and crafting or reading. Then after I moved out, I had no television in my flat, or when I was travelling, or (except for two months in 2012 when I stayed with Laura) the time after that, until I returned from Prague in 2014.

Run out of words again. More tomorrow.