Unshaven and un-swum

 

It takes time to realize that some things that you usually do, do not necessarily have to be done.

I won’t list the little things that we do that only have the power of frequency or habit to recommend them, but if you think about your day there will be all sorts of actions and ‘rituals’ that you do that could be scrapped at a moment’s notice and your life would be better.  Or at least different.

These thoughts (if they can be dignified with that appellation) have been prompted by the fact that we came back from Terrassa after a family celebration quite late.  As we get up at 6 am (sic) any lateness to bed is penalized by the rapidly approaching morning!  So we were both tired today and the ride to work was more than usually taciturn.  But, we got there in time, indeed with enough time to spare for Toni to have an early morning coffee to give him the necessary caffeine fix to get through to the breakfast break.

As I stuttered by way past the series of red lights in Cornella on my way home, a thought struck me.  I didn’t have to go to work.  And (traitorous thought) I didn’t have to have my swim.  Now, not swimming (in spite of the fact that I enjoy the activity) is something that I constantly had to deal with on my way back from school at the end of the day when I was working.  I had an (expensive) membership of the David Lloyd Centre and that august institution had not only a fair sized indoor pool, but also a far more bracing outdoor one. 

But, at the end of the day I was tired and disinclined to swim.  I would spend the distance from school to home debating with myself about whether I really wanted to go for a swim, because, after all, I had had a swim in the morning, or would I rather have a proper cup of tea at home.  This debate would go on until I found myself (somehow) in the car park of the David Lloyd Centre.  And I would go and have a swim.

Now that I am retired, I find that I am made of sterner stuff.  The dictum, “You are tired, go to bed” seemed to me to have the authority of sacred law.  So, in spite of the fact that the swimming pool is directly on my return route, I veered away from the entrance and came home and went back to bed.  And I feel better for it!

I will not laze around too much, after all I have the liquid accusation of a communal swimming pool just outside the back garden gate to urge me to take my accustomed exercise, even if it is a little later than usual.

And then there is the indulgence of being unshaven.  In the (early) morning I just have a cursory wash and brush my teeth (not so cursorily) because I have a shower and a shave after my swim.  Which in my case I have not had.  So it is now a question of which comes first?  The cup of tea, the swim, or ablutions.

What obviously came first was this piece of writing which is something that characterises my approach to life: if in doubt, write.  So having written, I think I will have a swim, then a shower and shave and then a lingering cup of tea on the terrace on the third floor - and an introduction to the rest of the day!

Music as balm?

For the first time, asking Alexa to “Play Classical Music!” I have been provided with something other than blatantly recognizable Bach.  Though I have to admit that what I am listening to, although being played on a modern piano, would benefit by being plucked on a harpsichord.  The more I listen to it, the more it sounds like a modern pastiche of the style of something much older.  The great thing, of course, is that I will not find out what the actual piece of music is and so I am safe in what I have written.

As an experiment, I have just asked Alexa what piece of music had just been played.  She answered in a single gnomic word that I didn’t understand, so I asked, “Alexa explain more.”  And I got a neat little explanation of the grammatical uses of the word and a little historical note about Sir Thomas Moore.  Perhaps I should just allow ignorance to lie low!

As the Alexa terminal is hidden behind the computer I usually forget that she is lurking there, unless someone demands something from one of the other terminals scattered around the house and my Alexa jumps to vocalization.  And incidentally, while I have been typing this we have gone from Carmine Burana to Beethoven - it puts me in mind of the worst excesses of Classic FM!

I once listened to whole a day’s worth of Classic FM when I was in a friend’s caravan in Devon where I had sequestered myself because I had to get a piece of written work finished and I needed to be far away from domestic distractions.

The great thing about Classic FM is that it makes all the music it plays sound like sonic wallpaper.  No matter how great the actual music is, the smooth and slightly condescending delivery of the announcers and the sometimes-shocking juxtapositioning of the individual snatches of music means that it all flows together in an unbroken stream of comforting soundliness!

If that sounds dismissive, it isn’t meant to be, as I got the work done and the music obviously did what I wanted it to!

I must admit that I do not listen to as much music as I once did.  Yes, I play (religiously) through the box sets of CDs that I (still) buy for use in the car.  Though my purchases are obviously atavistic: our local computer and electrical store no longer holds CD book-holders, which just emphasises how out of touch I am in still continuing to buy CDs rather than give in and subscribe to Spotify!

I only listen to Radio 3 once in a blue moon, I even forgot to listen to the first night of the Proms and that had a performance of The Glagolitic Mass, I first heard that on an old Supraphon recording that I had in college.  And no, that is not going to be an opportunity taken to vaunt the superiority of the audio on disc rather than the rather more cramped CD.

I find that I am reading more than I am listening to music.  And the reading I am doing is mostly connected to current events, especially in the UK, and specifically political events.  You see how far I am prepared to go before I have to mention the dreaded “B” word.

And I have made an executive decision that I will never refer to the congenital liar who appears to be making his inexorable way to Number 10 Downing Street by his first name (which is of course Alex, and not the one that he has chosen to be referred to as) as I feel not an iota of familiarity or fellow feeling for the odious person that he obviously is.

Next week, I will start the process of applying for Spanish citizenship, as I have no desire to be associated with a country that can allow a character, described by the Guardian’s John Crace as “Priapic Mr Blobby”, to be its Prime Minister. 

Though, there again, will The Country actually allow this lying chancer to take the post?  The Conservatives have a working majority of 3, with the August by-election in Brecon that might well be down to 2 - so all it would take is one principled Conservative (sic!) to change sides for the majority to be wiped out, to say nothing of the machinations of the Neanderthals in the DUP whose bought loyalty to the Conservatives is problematic.

So, can May (you remember, she used to be that vicious Home Secretary and useless Prime Minister) in all conscience (I used the word lightly in terms of the ethics of the present day Conservatives) recommend the kipper-waving liar to Brenda, the unelected (so they will have something in common) nonagenarian Germanic dwarf?

I can hardly wait for the next exciting episode of the tediously unimaginative soap opera that political life has become nowadays.

Meanwhile I continue with my writing and preparing books for publication, which in the circumstances has more in common with Madame Defarge’s knitting than any cultural activity!  

Though, alas, without the end result of execution!

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'Tidy!' - the visual accusation!

“No reason at all!” is the best reason in the world to take up the keys and start typing out a continuation of this blog.  It has been far too long since I have availed myself of the therapeutic exercise of indulging my proclivity to prolixity!

The real reason for my writing today is because of tidying.

I am not, it has to be admitted, a congenitally tidy person.  I know (as every messy liver will aver) where things are in ‘a general sort of way’ even if I find it difficult to be anything more than vague about absolute location.

But there comes a point in any Clutter-Man’s life when simple entrance and egress is made difficult by the sheer weight and substantiality of stuff.  To put it simply, I was finding the way to my desk on the third floor more and more of an obstacle course.  And painful too.  The third floor interior area is the equivalent of the attic and, while it is open to the stairs (and has its own terrace) it does have a sharply sloping roof/ceiling on one side and, if you are trying to navigate your way through a selection of boxes, furniture and other sundry impedimenta one is apt to forget headroom and until the head in question makes its presence felt by a sharp blow by the ceiling.

In self-defence, therefore, tidying had to be done.  But it is very difficult to tidy when there is no spare space for those things that need tidying to be tidied into.   

The whole process then becomes like a three dimensional slide-a-slate puzzle where you have to push the bits next to the space in an increasingly frustrating sequence before you get what you want where you want it.

So I emptied things out on to the terrace.  This gives the illusion of space, or its reality if you have the strength of will to ignore the rubble just the other side of the glass doors.  There is also the nagging horror of what to do with the stuff that you have merely displaced rather than dealt with.

My solution, as is so often the case, was to go shopping.

Lidl have, this week, a special offer of rather fetching plastic storage boxes.  I also possess a library book trolley that is far too large for the ‘library’ that it was bought for.  So, in a masterly utilization of uselessness I have bedecked the trolley with the new boxes and have attempted to winnow the floor based confusion of papers and cables and things into opaque boxed order.  Since the trolley has wheels, I am also able to move the loaded machine to gain access to bookcases that have long been denied me.  And it has only taken me all week.

And that time has not only been spent on the third floor, but also in the library itself where one part is actually my wardrobe.  Because of the difficult of access (cf. large trolley above) clean clothes tended to amass rather than be put away.  So, before I could get to the trolley I had to tidy away all the flotsam clothes that formed a barrier to exploration of the inner recesses of the bibliophile sanctum wherein the trolley resided.

So, given the amount of stuff that had to be ‘tidied’ (I have put the term in inverted commas because I know that my version of that word gets nowhere near Toni’s definition where he tidies in detail and in depth; my approach is superficial to say the least) I feel proud that it has only taken the best part of a working week to get from chaos to mere unruly clutter.

All of which allows, nay, encourages me to type and write. 

Cui bono?  I leave for you to judge!