What happened on this scintillating day, I wonder? What nuggets of interest can I find amongst
the disjecta membra of daily living
as a person ‘resting’ between assignments?
Well, I got up at 07:30. I listened
to ‘Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads’ on Radio Four Extra over
breakfast. It was the one where Bob and
Thelma got married and no-one could find Auntie Beattie’s teeth. I ate cereal followed by toast with lime
marmalade. I drank four cups of tea in
my favourite mug that my mother gave me.
It is chipped, but the rim is just the right fit for an early morning
mouth and the handle slides neatly into the flaccid early morning forefinger.
I cycled down for my newspaper. En route, I passed a man I had last played tennis with twenty years before. He looked old, bald and round-shouldered but I immediately recognised that familiar lurching gait. We didn’t speak. Goodness knows what he would have thought about me.
I cycled straight back. I drank coffee and read the paper, one of the two cats purring on my knee. It seems that the Coalition and Labour have made changes to their Front Benches. The Tories are trying to appeal to the Northern working-class and Labour is ridding itself of the remaining Blairites. I read it in the paper so it must be true.
I took the dog for a walk, to the churchyard and back. A strengthening breeze blew from the west, making it feel a little cooler than of late. On my return, I swept up leaves and restored the recycling bins to their correct location. I defrosted the fridge. The door hadn’t been closing properly. At mid-day, there came a ring at the bell. It was the Jehovah’s Witnesses, represented by a bright young woman with a severe hairstyle and an older woman who looked like a horse.
“Could we come in for a few minutes and explain about our relationship with God?”
I slipped into my usual mode, well practiced, on such occasions.
“Vair sorree – no spikka da Eenglees.”
After lunch, I completed the crossword with the help of Roget’s Thesaurus and the internet. I opened up my emails. An agent wondered if I would be interested in being interviewed for a permanent position inNorth
Lincolnshire . From what I
remembered, North Lincolnshire was a long way
away and as flat as an ironing-board, so I declined. I hate the word
‘permanent’ being applied to anything these days.
I read my diaries from this day in 1984, 1994 and 2004. I wasn’t ‘resting’ then. In 1984, I was under the jackboot of the Hestair Duple hegemony inBlackpool . In 1994, I had just left Dublin Corporation
I came downstairs and watched television. 'Jeeves andWooster'
“How many words on a page?” a suspicious young girl asked him.
“About 10,000,” Bertie replied. Jeeves arrived at the nick of time with a solution, as usual.
The episode of 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' was ‘Silver Blaze’, the excellent story where Holmes unmasked a murderous trainer, a horse-faker and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
'The New Avengers' was bonkers as usual - Steed, Gambit and Purdey each had doppelgangers except some weren't and some were. Trying to follow it gave me something of a headache.
'Star Trek – Deep Space Nine' had an even more ludicrous plot than usual - this one being about a megalomanic admiral who tried to take over the Earth to stop it being overrun by shape-shifters, only to be foiled by Captain Sisko and Odo, who, ironically, happens to be a shape-shifter.
At seven ‘o’ clock the soaps started, so I took the dog out for a walk for a second time. I returned within forty minutes to find that I had almost run out of ink. I put the bin out, put my bicycle away, and to cap off the day, put the car in the garage.
What was it Lou Reed sang? ‘It’s such a perfect day/Drank sangria in the park/ And later, when it was dark, I came home.’ That just about sums it up.
I cycled down for my newspaper. En route, I passed a man I had last played tennis with twenty years before. He looked old, bald and round-shouldered but I immediately recognised that familiar lurching gait. We didn’t speak. Goodness knows what he would have thought about me.
I cycled straight back. I drank coffee and read the paper, one of the two cats purring on my knee. It seems that the Coalition and Labour have made changes to their Front Benches. The Tories are trying to appeal to the Northern working-class and Labour is ridding itself of the remaining Blairites. I read it in the paper so it must be true.
I took the dog for a walk, to the churchyard and back. A strengthening breeze blew from the west, making it feel a little cooler than of late. On my return, I swept up leaves and restored the recycling bins to their correct location. I defrosted the fridge. The door hadn’t been closing properly. At mid-day, there came a ring at the bell. It was the Jehovah’s Witnesses, represented by a bright young woman with a severe hairstyle and an older woman who looked like a horse.
“Could we come in for a few minutes and explain about our relationship with God?”
I slipped into my usual mode, well practiced, on such occasions.
“Vair sorree – no spikka da Eenglees.”
After lunch, I completed the crossword with the help of Roget’s Thesaurus and the internet. I opened up my emails. An agent wondered if I would be interested in being interviewed for a permanent position in
I read my diaries from this day in 1984, 1994 and 2004. I wasn’t ‘resting’ then. In 1984, I was under the jackboot of the Hestair Duple hegemony in
I came downstairs and watched television. 'Jeeves and
“How many words on a page?” a suspicious young girl asked him.
“About 10,000,” Bertie replied. Jeeves arrived at the nick of time with a solution, as usual.
The episode of 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' was ‘Silver Blaze’, the excellent story where Holmes unmasked a murderous trainer, a horse-faker and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
'The New Avengers' was bonkers as usual - Steed, Gambit and Purdey each had doppelgangers except some weren't and some were. Trying to follow it gave me something of a headache.
'Star Trek – Deep Space Nine' had an even more ludicrous plot than usual - this one being about a megalomanic admiral who tried to take over the Earth to stop it being overrun by shape-shifters, only to be foiled by Captain Sisko and Odo, who, ironically, happens to be a shape-shifter.
At seven ‘o’ clock the soaps started, so I took the dog out for a walk for a second time. I returned within forty minutes to find that I had almost run out of ink. I put the bin out, put my bicycle away, and to cap off the day, put the car in the garage.
What was it Lou Reed sang? ‘It’s such a perfect day/Drank sangria in the park/ And later, when it was dark, I came home.’ That just about sums it up.
