Sunday 23rd April

I do realise that by the time you read this it will be that Monday Morning Feeling, and in a way they are twins anyway.  The one preceeds the other and maybe each one cannot quite exist without its twin partner.  The thought that the weekend is over, yet again, and no matter how good it was, how much achieved, how successful, how tired one is, there is no denying the fact that tomorrow will be boring old Monday again, the beginning of the working week, the cranking up of the treadmill for another round of pointless plodding.  And in a reflective mood I begin to question my whole way of life, and the constant nagging question, “Am I really happy?”   “Well yes, in a way,” I have to answer, but then again comes the corollary, “but is this all there is?”  And yes in a way this is it, I mean, what did you expect?  And no matter I am sure if one is rich and living in Mayfair or stuck in a council flat, the question will still rise to the surface like some nagging little reminder of all the expired ambitions, the teenage fantasies, the what-if, and if-only, and especially what might have been if only ones life had taken a different direction.

So, Sunday Evening, a time for reflection and after the papers have been read and the news digested – boring as ever I am afraid, and the TV schedule refused – not another episode of Silent Witness, the book turned over on the sofa – which doesn’t appeal either, the few dishes from the solitary meal waiting to be washed up –  a reminder if ever there was one that Catherine is still on her own, I take off my glasses, rub my weary eyes, and start to write another days blog.  And when it is written I begin to feel a bit better.  The weekend was quite good all things considered and of course, before you know it, it will be Friday again and another one; no matter what you did with the last one there is always another to look forward to.  Bon Voyage.

Sunday 22nd April

I watched Newsnight on Friday night; I don’t always watch it – a bit too depressing sometimes, but if you want t a bit of in-depth analysis this is really the only place for it these days.  The first item was headed Omnishambles, a made-up word which had originally featured in the brilliant ‘The Thick of it’ a few years ago.  Omnishambles is a description of a series of blunders, one falling on top of the other, like Jenga building blocks.  It was used this time in the context of the present Government’s current run of bad headlines or mid-term blues or whatever else you want to describe it as.  What invariable seems to happen is that when a new Government comes in, and it was thirteen years since Labour swept to power in 1997 and it had been eighteen before that since Mrs. Thatcher first won an election, so lately it hadn’t been that often, there is a swathe of goodwill not only from the general public but also from the media.  The press and the broadcasters seem hesitant to criticize when a party has just turned another out.  But gradually sentiments change and usually about two years in things start to turn; either the new Government seems to run out of ideas, or things come home to roost.  There is only a certain length of time that you can blame the previous lot for everything.  And the very nature of this coalition, which seemed so fortuitous to all concerned when the Tories failed to gain an overall majority is now looking quite shabby and neither party is feeling that they are really in charge, and everything is a compromise. The current omnishambles started really with the Budget, which was supposed to breathe new life both into the economy, but also into the electoral prospects of both the Tories and the Libdems.  It has done neither and has continued to unravel and be torn to shreds from all sides including Tory backbenchers for over a month now.  Add to that the fiasco surrounding Abu Qatada’s appeal, and we seem to see a Government in power but not in control of events at all.  It will probably improve a bit during the summer, the Olympics and the Queens Jubilee and the good weather will help, but the thing which brings Governments down is more than anything the appearance of incompetence.  It doesn’t rheally matter how unpopular a Government is, or how hated certain policies are, it is the idea that they don’t know what they are doing that becomes their undoing.  Read on…

Saturday 21st April

Stop for a while in your busy day, just pause for a moment and look out for a magpie.  You won’t have to wait long, these birds are everywhere nowadays, not just in the countryside, but in parks and gardens in urban areas too, in fact they seem to be taking over, I don’t remember seeing so many when I was young.  They are the most beautiful of birds with an almost exotic plumage, more suited to some South American rainforest than our dreary shores.  Their colours are like some smart uniform for a national airline, the sparkling white and the iridescent black-blue which shimmers in the sunlight in such stark contrast to each other.  And they are such brave birds, seemingly unafraid of anything and certainly quite oblivious of us humans, as they swoop and dart through the trees, and hop along the pavements just in front of you.  They seem almost friendly, but don’t be deceived, the magpie is not friendly at all; it is one of the most ruthless of the birds, the true descendents of the dinosaurs.  They are quite rapacious and will eat anything, true scavengers and of course among the most successful of species, along with rats pigs and foxes and humans – all creatures who will devour anything and stop at nothing to get what they need to survive.  They are also reckoned to be one of the most intelligent of species, even recognizing themselves in mirrors, and learning how to solve puzzles.  Is this perhaps because they are scavengers and therefore have had to develop their intelligence to seek out new food sources, unlike more specialist birds which only eat one type of food.

But they are also one of the most beautiful of birds too, much prettier than the crows and rooks they are related to.  So next time you see a magpie, don’t just pass him by, but stop a moment and watch as he dives about and try to catch his eye as he struts around unafraid and bold in his smart bright feathers, and put a good word in for me while you are about it.

Friday 20th April

If I am not careful you will think that all my musical influences came from Adrian.  That’s not true, of course, but it is true that I had managed (before meeting him) to quite successfully isolate myself from most of the musical explosion that occurred in the sixties and seventies.  Adrian used to play this record all the time, and it was one of the few I really loved.  It is a beautiful and haunting record which cleverly marries the sounds of a ‘rock’ band with a full orchestra, to the point that some of the songs are almost mini-symphonies with subtle variations of sound and texture.   The album starts off with ‘She Said’ a strange melody and haunting words of almost regret. “She said, ‘why don’t you come and stay with me.’” The song features a really quiet middle section before a great whooshing of sound as the orchestra is dragged back in; I always find myself full of excitement as I anticipate this surge of sound.  This must be one of the best opening songs of any album as it sets you up perfectly for the rest of the record.  The best known song is ‘Mocking Bird’ – a classic in every way, but my very favourites are the two almost acoustic songs ‘Vanessa Simmonds’ and ‘Galadriel’.   No matter how sad I am feeling those opening lines “She comes up with the morning sun, to tell me life has just begun, Oh what it is to be young”  never fails to lift my mood and make me feel good, which is all that you want from music; the ultimate drug.

Of course, they were never really fashionable, even in the seventies, and one gets reactions varying from laughter to derision if one mentions them these days.  But these fools do not know what a gem they are consigning to the dustbin of popular music.  Go listen.

Thursday19th April

I am constantly amazed at the selfishness of people.  It seems that we have entered into an era where the self-gratification of the individual is all that has any value.  And especially in the younger generations; and at my age most people fall into that category, where the pursuit of their own desires seems the over-riding imperative.  You see them everywhere, these young confident strident greedy egoists, who are well paid, well dressed, immaculately groomed and in hot pursuit of the latest styles and gadgets.  There are whole magazines devoted to satisfying their never diminishing hunger for material goods; I have glanced at them in dentist’s waiting rooms but they hold no appeal for me at all.

Of course these people are products of the rapacious capitalism that is engulfing us all, with fresh waves at present lapping our shores from the far east, which may soon turn into a veritable tsunami of selfishness, threatening to entirely overwhelm our traditional values of selflessness and altruism.  And where does it come from, this rolling of several of the deadly sins into one self-obsessed ball of greed.  One wonders which came first, the greed or capitalism, because the one feeds on and stokes the other.  It is quite hard to find anyone nowadays who genuinely believes in doing things for others rather than themselves.

But here and there we see signs of some people who are at least are tiring of the constant treadmill of work and acquisition.  As if any of it really mattered, when real friends and loved ones, especially children, are all that have ever mattered.  So, pause a moment in your rush of self-indulgence and think for a moment about what is really important in life.  But not for too long or someone might get ahead of you.

Wednesday18th April

One hears the refrain all the time, “All politicians are the same” and it simply isn’t true.  This opinion is usually held, if the term opinion can even be ascribed to ones who think so little, by those who invariably do not vote at all.  They have abnegated all responsibility by not participating in their own future and so are free to criticize at will all that others are trying to do.  And I actually do believe that the vast majority of politicians do sincerely want to improve the world we live in.  One may argue with the methods they use, or the fact that they are careful with their language so as not to become a hostage to fortune, or to scare the children (take your pick), but in the main they are decent people who genuinely believe that the philosophy they are following is in the country’s best interest.  At least they start out that way, even if the intervening years may produce a degree of skepticism and even self-serving arrogance.  The problem is not with the individual politicians but the party system, though no-one has yet devised a system where parties or like-minded groups or caucuses do not emerge.  One may dislike certain politicians intensely, I had no time for Mrs Thatcher, with her thinly disguised snobbery and determined hatred of trade unions, and Mr. Blair, with his unctuous manner and cod-religious justifications for constantly going to war often rubbed me up the wrong way, but say what you like, they were as different as chalk and cheese.  Mrs Thatcher was not even a politician, in the normal sense of the word; she was not prepared to seek out any sort of consensus at all, those who were not with her were against her, and she carried all before her by sheer willpower.  Mr. Blair was the epitome of persuasion, using his skills to great effect with Northern Ireland, but to our awful cost in hoodwinking most of his party and a large part of the country to agree to invading Iraq.   And now we have Mr. Cameron and Mr. Milliband, who may sound similar, but actually are representing completely different sections of society.  And they are quite different from each other, and from poor Mr. Clegg, who may not only have backed the wrong horse but has led his party from the possibility of wielding some real influence from the backbenches into an unholy alliance where they will get none of the praise and all the blame.  So, before making sweeping generalizations just think; would you say that all nurses or all bus drivers are the all the same – I think not.  QED.

Tuesday17th April

Why, oh why, am I constantly being stopped in the street and asked for directions.  Is it because I am a certain age, is it because I am generally well-dressed, or is it because I look so polite the questioner, the stopper, knows I won’t shout, I won’t ignore them and most of all I won’t tell them to F%$k Off.  Really it happens almost every week; are there really that many ignorant people around or is this some well organized practical joke?  And there really is no excuse; have these people never heard of a SatNav, or those Apps you can buy for your phone to ensure you never get lost, or Googling the map before you set off, or even that old stop-gap of yesteryear an A to Z of London.  But no, rather than think about where they are going before they set out, they just assume that someone else will show them the way.

And would you believe it, I can hardly ever help them out.  I am either in a slightly unfamiliar part of London myself, or the streets they ask for are ones I have never heard of, and strongly suspect either do not actually exist, or are in a totally different part of the city from where the stopper has stopped me, the stoppee, for interrogation.  And they don’t take no for an answer, they persist in repeating Sycamore Avenue or Bledgate Street, with a pleading look on their face as if I had magical powers and could transport them to the street of their dreams with a wave of my magic wand.

And am I the only one with good eyesight in the world.  I do like to listen to my i-pod in the street, and like the girl in the nursery rhyme, have music wherever I go.  So how come the stopper never notices that I have my earphones in, and so when they, the stopper stop me, I have to not only stop walking, but scrabble for my player and put it on pause and remove my headphones before I can invariably disappoint this stupid stopper with my lack of knowledge of the more obscure by-ways of the capital.

Monday 16th April

It is strange but you only regret those things you did not do.  Things you did, which obviously turn out to be mistakes or serious errors of judgment are brushed aside as not important, or something to learn from or all part of life’s trials and tribulations.  You never really regret things you have done, no matter how awful.  Maybe murderers regret killing their victims, but this may actually be remorse, which is different from regret, or regretting that having killed their victim they got caught, regretting that they did not dispose of the body more carefully perhaps, or that they had chosen a messy method, or more likely that they hadn’t done it sooner.

It is the things we do not do, the things we neglected to do; the choices we did not make that we regret not the ones we chose.  I can honestly say that I do not regret anything.  Possibly I could have tried harder to reconcile Grandma to my leaving home, or that I had taken my mother more seriously than I did all those years ago, but actually I think it would have made little difference.  No the things I regret are mostly abstract, like learning to play the piano, the love of which I only discovered in my mid-teens and it all seemed to late by then, or persevering with my painting which I hated at school, daubing away with bright unsubtle colours at still-life bowls of fruit, when with some real application I feel I might have achieved something; I always knew what I wanted the picture to look like, I just never had the materials to achieve it.  Like that line by Fairground Attraction, “like threading a needle with boxing gloves”.  I do regret not writing earlier in life too, but again that is a bit abstract.

I was once offered a course on computer programming by that Hotel I met Adrian in, they were looking for bright young people to set up the computers in their head office in Edinburgh.  But this was in 1972 and computers filled a whole room in those days and were in their infancy and no-one could imagine their ubiquity now.  But in all honesty I do not regret it.

Sunday 15th April

J’ais retourne, and cannot wait to get back to writing again.  I have my class at 4 today, for which luckily I prepared and printed out a piece before we left.  I did take the laptop with me, in the hopes that in those quiet moments I would do some real writing.  But quiet moments there came none really; I did think about writing once or twice, but as you know writing is above all else a solitary pursuit.  The mere fact of someone else bumbling around or even gently snoozing in the gite somewhere seemed to put a stop to any artistic endeavours.  Just as well, really as I find I need quite a long period of peaceful thoughtful reflection before I can begin.  Well, I am of course determined to catch up for lost time, and will try to make Monday, tomorrow, my writing day.  Perhaps I need a slightly different approach, and need to dedicate a whole day to almost nothing but writing, rather than try to do something every day.

I have really enjoyed my little holiday, though do not feel exactly relaxed after it.  I sometimes think that I don’t really know how to relax in any case, the brain is nearly always racing with thoughts, and the more someone tells me to relax the more fidgety I get.  I would always rather be doing something than nothing I suppose and have never quite understood those who can lay in bed till ten then saunter down and slummock on the sofa and reach for the remote.

Anyway I hope you have enjoyed my sporadic little postings from France, only slightly interrupted by lack of internet, and can assure you that normal service will soon be resumed.

Saturday 14th April

We have been driving back all day yesterday and again today.  I quite like travelling and looking over the fields as we speed past, but France is such a vast country that even when one has been travelling at 85 miles per hour for a couple of hours and it is only a few inches on the map.

When one is travelling towards a destination, especially a new one, one is full of hope and ideas and above all else a pervading sense of excitement which naturally rises as one approaches closer.  The return journey, while still a part of the holiday, brings on strange feelings almost of regret at not achieving quite that which one set out to accomplish, mixed with emotions of parting, especially if one had a good time, and slight feelings of sadness at returning to one’s normal life again, with the daily grind, the pile of washing and the even more tiresome pile of letters to address.

Sometimes when one considers it in the cold light of day, a holiday is an enormous waste of time, but the opposite, having no holidays, leaves one feeling denied and almost a second-class citizen.  In any case I have had a good time.  I always feel comfortable in France, like a warm jumper one slips into every now and then, it may be a bit old and frumpy but it is so warm and cosy that one wonders why on earth one doesn’t wear it more often.