Tag: Why?

This Spring

Photo by Kostiantyn Stupak on Pexels.com

It was one of those days when I went from the garden to the shed about a hundred times and remembered why I was there about twice.  The sun was shining and it was time to set about the Spring gardening tasks.  It went like this: I’ll cut the grass.  I’ll need the lawnmower.  The lawnmower is in the shed.  Why did I come into the shed?  I’ve no idea.  Oh well, there’s a spade over there, I’ll take that back out with me.  Mm, why have I got this spade?  Was I going to dig that old bush up?  I think I ought to mow the lawns first.  I’ll need the lawnmower.  The lawnmower is in the shed etc etc etc…  If I’m honest, I don’t need to mow it now as I have worn most of it away tramping backwards and forwards to the shed.

Somehow I did manage to get a handful of jobs done, but I have no idea whether they were the jobs I set out to do.  I refilled the water-feature, rewired it and stacked up the pebbles around it with no greater injury than a split fingernail.  I turned it on.  The water tinkled, the lights twinkled and, amazingly, nothing blew up in the house: there was no bang, there was no smoke.  I re-grouted the slabs on the patio successfully and without incident, and I patched up the broken concrete on the drive – although it being by then in full sun, the patches have already started to crack like the ‘Do Not Microwave’ dish I used to heat up the yesterday’s dinner.  Oh, and somehow I split my fingernail.

It is odd to look out on our little ocean of green, fenced off from the Somme-like scenery that borders us and the muck and racket makes the toil of preserving our own quiet little corner even more onerous to me (the rabid non-gardener) than ever.  It is hard to maintain enthusiasm for the upkeep of our mini-oasis when a yellow-hatted man in a machine that dwarfs our house is staring down whilst picking his nose and scoop by scoop turning our green and pleasant view into mulch.  The house building has now reached our very fence and the footings are dug in preparation for building the properties that will eventually be occupied by our new neighbours.  Yesterday the digger hit the concrete floor of the old farm buildings that our houses are built on and nearly turned itself over.  When I think back to the battles I have had with the bloody thing armed just with a spade, it somehow made me feel better to know that it proved a match for the giant JCB.  It has taken me four decades to dig up the segment that lies under my garden lump by lump, and I now quite enjoy the fact that almost every single chunk of it has been dumped exactly where the digger is now toiling.  Take that progress!

I love the garden, whilst my wife loves to garden.  She is happy to toil away her days clipping, pruning, digging and weeding whilst I am happy to sit in it and drink gin.  Perhaps by next summer we will have returned to the quiet, peaceful existence we have known for the last four decades – even if the trees in the distance will be hidden by walls and roofs – and I almost certainly will have fully retired from work, so I will be able to spend more of my time out there – even if I’ve no idea why…

An End to Introspection

Photo by Eileen Pan on Unsplash

Passing through a point in time – a point made all too accessible by advancing age – where every ‘ping’ of the mobile phone heralds news of illness or untimely death, I have found myself becoming (you may have noticed) increasingly introspective.  I have been writing this blog now for four years: originally once a week, then twice, thrice and occasionally four-ice and five-ice and I have grown accustomed to the ebb and flow of it all.  It has always been labelled ‘Humour’ even on the occasions when I knew that it wasn’t funny.  I do try, but occasionally I have to get things off my chest.  Like Ray Alan, I need to vent.  Posting regularly means that I don’t have much scope for writing things that I don’t use.  Whatever comes out of my head will find its way, in time, onto your screen.  It’s not always ideal, but the only thing I have to offer you, dear reader, is me, and I am very often disappointing.

In order to lift myself from this recent slough of despond (literally shed skin in a lake) I have decided to take a closer look at why I started doing this thing in the first place and also why, as I seem unable to write a decent joke these days, I still do it.  The obvious answer is vanity: the narcissism of a man who believes that everyone else wants to know all about him.  (Do I mean narcissism or is that a little yellow daffodil?)  If I’m honest, if you piece together everything I have written over the last four years – although God knows why you would, you could far more profitably pass your time with a jigsaw of The Haywain – you will find that you know far more about me than you would ever want to know.  Having written over half a million words during my tenure – far more than even Jeffrey Archer would lavish on a single subject – I wonder what there is possibly left to tell.

Well, let’s see: I don’t eat meat, I eat far too much chocolate, and the only way you would ever stop me from eating a roasted peanut would be by painting a cute face on it.  I drink far too much wine, ditto gin, ditto whisky and I drink far too little water.  I am sixty three years of age, frighteningly adjacent to sixty four if I’m honest, and most of my clothes, like my beard and my temper are becoming ragged.  I am, none-the-less blessed with huge patience and more empathy than you can shake a stick at – as long as neither is put to the test.  As I write this piece I have something in my eye.  I can’t see it but it feels like a six foot section of 3”x2”.  The only way I can stop it from hurting is to fasten the lid down with a length of sellotape (which I presume should be pronounced seal-o-tape) giving me the impression of being permanently mid-wink.  I think the only cure is wine – but, if I’m honest, it is probably the cure for most ills.  I have a friend who swears that it is the best cure for a hangover, but I have never dared to try it.  Imagine hitting your good thumb with a hammer to cure the fact that you’d just flattened the other accidentally.  I am gullible, but not that gullible.  (Actually, I am.)  I am also the most easily distracted person I know, with the attention span of a… what was the blue fish called in Finding Nemo?

I love people, but am uncomfortable in company and panicky in a crowd.  I am very competitive, but I do have a tendency to give in when I’m winning.  I love silence outside and hate it inside.  Left alone in a house I will often have different music playing simultaneously in three or four rooms, with my mind seemingly able to keep track of them all at the same time.  I am tone deaf like Donald Trump is unpleasant (e.g. very).  I am what I write and what I intend to write here on in will be happy and definitely not introspective – it will possibly be outrospective – because, I have decided, introspection, like the door to a pub, sucks.

And my favourite word is probably widdle.