The other swimmers this morning were a
small child whose swimming was the sort of organized chaos which, even to my
myopic eyes was irresistibly funny. He
looked as though he was worming his way through the water. My other marker was a gentleman in the other
lane who had a decent turn of speed but not quite as quick as me. Both of them stopped from time to time after
a couple of lengths, whereas I ploughed onwards without ever stopping. This meant that I was constantly having a
series of successes while my music pleasantly accompanied my achievements. This went on until both of my markers and
their replacements had left the pool and I thought that it was time to look at
my watch. And discovered that I had swum
a full ten minutes more than my allocated half hour stint!
In the way that I figure these things, I
have therefore decided that I can have the do it yourself risotto that has been
languishing in its little plastic container for months as part of my 20% where
I don’t have to worry about my diet. In
fact, giving how backsliding I was this week, I am amazed that I still managed
to lose half a kilo, so whatever I am doing it is having the right effect. At the moment, kilo by kilo. Slow progress.
My writing continues, but the ten people in
my tutor group seem to have writer’s cramp and neither post nor comment. If this continues I shall neither post nor
comment myself. He said sulking. It is early days yet, and there should, in
theory be lots to read and comment on.
There better well bloody be! Or I
shall ask for my money back. At least.
I fed my watch again today I the spate of
sunshine that we had in the afternoon. I
did not, I have to admit, sit outside with it – that was going too far. I am sure that the sun is just as hot as it
was in the summer but it does seem a damn sight farther away from us than it
was. And while I am still wearing
sandals as a last ditch rejection of the onset of winter, I am not prepared to
be as skimpily dressed overall as I am in the feet area.
I have been reading cheap Kindle books of
such awfulness that I am not even prepared to give the titles. They were just the other side of being a
guilty pleasure (like reading Agatha Christie) and more of a waste of
time. Still, I have also downloaded a
couple of Kindle books of poetry. I am
sure that we are going to be overwhelmed with reprints of every poor trench
dwelling soldier who was able to rhyme next year, but I am looking for bargains
and wondering if they can be read in a Kindle format. I have just bought one called, I think, Poems
of War which goes back to the American Civil War and the Crimea rather than to
Classical times. Another anthology goes
back to an English sailor writing to his love while fighting the Spanish in the
sixteenth century. This anthology traces
the difference between the intellectual elite who write about warfare in the abstract
and those soldiers who write about it from first hand. As long as I can get used to the format, I am
looking forward to increasing my knowledge of a whole range of poets of whom I have
never heard!
Roll on next year when I think that I will
be in the market for some of the books which are bound to be produced to mark
the start of the conflict. I still think
that my old anthology called ‘Men Who March Away’ by Parsons is one of the best
that I have come across. I would be
delighted to find out that a new one has been produced and will take over as my
favourite!
Now, more writing on the forums and the
vain hope of some sort of response!
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