Today's Menu

Finding a simple balance in life is difficult, at best. We live in an age that is complicated by the choices we have before us. Never before, have so many people had so many options. Our time is measured in the hours, minutes and seconds taken reading a label on a tin of kidney beans to find out the sodium content, figuring the gas mileage of the car on a recent road trip, digesting the thoughts behind an opinion page of our local paper or running an all-important errand. From these actions spring other options - no one thing is ever finite or closed and, generally, I find that in performing a primary action, at least two other secondary actions or options snake off the side and I end up performing or contemplate performing those, as well. For instance, I am writing this entry but also warming my feet by sitting cross-legged and tucking my toes in the crooks of my knees. I will, at some point, be inspired to put some socks on simply because it's difficult to warm one's feet from the heat coming off nylon jogging bottoms (or maybe I just don't have my toes tucked in the correct crooks). Anyway, the dog will follow me to the sock drawer and because getting dressed is a signal to her that there is a possible w-a-l-k in store for her, she will whine until she steers my actions to exchange my slobby jogging attire for jeans, boots, a fleece and a hat (today is not a hairwashing day) and take her to the park (why can't she just use the back garden like other dogs?).
Which park? The options are endless in London. Most likely, it will be the local park up the hill, and it will be a good, long walk around the circuitous path that outlines the vast green lawns and clusters of trees. At any point we might cut across the lawn, walk through the Victorian maze, visit the dinosaurs* or stroll along the avenue of oak and chestnut trees near the cafe. I suppose what I'm getting at in the long-winded post is that even in a simple action such as taking a dog for a walk I am presented with a myriad of options, opportunities to make choices and decisions to take along the way. I will often make a move only out of necessity (dog needs a walk, my knees are stiffening up hence I am no longer sitting cross-legged and my need for socks is now greater) and in my life I would much rather make decisions and consider my options because of a choice I've made beforehand than out of necessity. Rarely do the big decisions come down to that, though. We need something drastically and we must therefore make a series of moves that takes us there. Honestly. The kidney bean thing may be the only thing we really can control.

Lemon Yellow, Forest Green, Sky Blue, Red-Violet, Burnt Sienna

I'm sitting in a hard chair, at a keyboard, typing away on subjects that I know too little about-metanarratives, identity, tribalism and visual language. The weather is warm outside but autumn is definitely on its way, there is the smell of cooler wind and the rustle of leathery dried leaves on branches. The sunlight is quickly moving south on the horizon. These are, perhaps, the Northern Hemisphere's sure signs of seasonal change. In England, autumn means the spiders are out spinning webs and windows and doorways and gardens are full of gauzy silk, threaded taut or sprung from their moorings, waiting for lazy flies and dying wasps to stumble in. The sloe berries on the blackthorn bushes up the street have the beginnings of a dusky bloom - I'll pick them in a few weeks when it's a bit colder - there's nothing like a glass of sloe gin on ice, during the winter holiday season. Autumn here means apples and cider from Kent and Somerset. Autumn here means inexplicable rituals like Bonfire Night in Lewes. Autumn means the last Bank Holiday Monday for a long, long time, and rich, brown and smooth conkers. Autumn for me, personally, means an unidentifiable melancholy that lasts until the end of October. Autumn in the UK means wet washing indoors and woolen sweaters and leather jackets. Autumn is an open gate to the new year and a closed gate to feeling young.

Five months ago I wished away the summer. My wish is coming true.

A Pasty Full of Memories

Thank you Cornwall for giving us such a delightful week of rest! For the next month I will be trawling the property pages looking for Cornish cottages to buy, once I've won on the premium bonds. The weather was perfect - most days were about 75-80F with a slight breeze and by the end of our week we were acquainted with the woman from next door, who helped us sort out what we could and couldn't recycle, the people from the tiny local shop, who stocked one of 'everything' in the world! I kid you not, if I had gone in and asked for a steel-belted radial tire they would have shuffled about and found one under the guinea pig food. We walked along the footpaths across fields and farms until we hit the coastline and, then, when we lost our way off the footpaths we trudged back up to our 17th century stone cottage inSt. Buryan via a muddy bog that was supposed to be a road. We went to Lands End and I was as close to the US as I could have been without getting on a plane bound for the States. I took one of the SO's nieces (they were staying in another cottage in another town) with me to St Ives - and SML, you're right there is something amazing about the light. St Ives wins its reputation for being an artists' haven for good reason. We visited Tate St Ives and saw the show pulled together to celebrate all things Brian Wilson...

I bought a watercolour painting in Sennen Cove. The woman makes the same mistakes I make in my painting - it was overworked, too tight and lacking in emotion. I loved it! Just to piss the SO off, I'm going to hang it in our bathroom in Brighton. It has an appropriate marine theme and what's a bathroom without fish, dolphins or shells? Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question...though this painting is some boat rigging and rusting equipment

We ate far too many pasties (not the burlesque accessories) and drank a few pints of Tribute Ale, which was the locally brewed stuff - yum!

All in all it was a brilliant holiday. The very best part of it was that I managed to avoid a nasty visit from Sam & Ella. Last year's holiday in Kefalonia was marred by a bout of Montezuma's Revenge that we suspect was transmitted by one of the feral cats on the island - I'm (mostly) vegetarian and ate the same food as my veggie SO. The temptation to pet a tiny, scruffy feline, which lived poolside at the hotel where we were staying, was too much for me and little did I know that my compassion for skinny strays was going to cost me 10 days (out of a 7 day holiday) of recuperation, plus a visit to the Argostoli hospital, two courses of antibiotics and some very undignified days spent in the hotel toilet. Beware of Greek kitties!

I can't wait for the next holiday and knowing how quickly time is passing these days, October will be upon us and we'll be packing our bags for a week in Krakow, Poland...

Thoughts on time

I was perusing the internet, as I do, and came across this blog. Now, I'm not saying that all Kerry Mac's thoughts are rational and lucid (hell, whose are?), but she's got an interesting perspective on the whole time/speed of light/parallel universe theory. I'm not sure where or how she's arrived at her thoughts or whether she just put this all down after a few too many pints or on a day when she forgot her meds. Nonetheless, some of humankind's best discoveries have come on the back of a bit of madness/lateral thinking/call it what you will. Enjoy Kerry Mac's own little brand - her blog entry on the 3rd of February is the one to which I'm referring - it must have taken her a good, long time to think through the possibilities of time/parallel universes she's positing.

Ciao!

Tempus Fugit

I hadn't really any intentions of keeping a daily blog and promised myself that if life got too busy that I wouldn't feel badly about not posting. However, I realised last week that each day that went by, I felt a guilty niggling sensation for not even logging on and attempting to write, at all.

That's how life is, though. Despite the seemingly generous amounts of time we'd have IF ONLY we'd budget for commuting, chores, sleeping, eating, socialising and self-generated entertainment (read into that what you will though I only meant reading and responding to emails), it seems that everything always runs over. We don't have bells to guide us from one activity to the next, giving us five minutes to take a pee break and go to our lockers for the next set of paraphernalia. So, I find that the filing I wanted only to take 45 minutes, indeed, takes a whopping 2 hours and 6 minutes, to be precise. That means I don't get a chance to watch 'Ready, Steady, Cook' or even log onto tinseleffect. In fact, filing has actually cut into the time I've allotted to visit the facilities (I do multi-task with that, though, and catch up on reading the Money section of the weekend paper). What I've decided is an attitude adjustment, and to do this I've decided to rework one of my chores into an entertainment or social activity. You know, something like disco-dance dusting or eating dinner with friends whilst pruning the Mahonia japonica, that sort of thing. I figure it's a positive step forward rather than moping about and pining for more time. In fact, tonight when SO and I have our dinner up at the pub with one of our friends, I'm going to take along the beginnings of my next Open U essay and try to get everyone to join in with their contribution to the topic of...'How Children make meaning through language'. Excellent!

Best wishes for a lovely weekend, I hope you enjoy the full 48 hours!