Miles to go before I sleep

By George I think I’ve got it. I was hanging out the washing and trying to plan how the bloomin’ heck I was going to get everything done, when I had a flash of bright light in my brain. I realised instantly that I was never ever going to get everything done. My endless list is a mixture of what I have to do, for our business needs and my triathlon training, as well as those things that I would like to do for myself, just plain selfishly, just for a moment of calm and peace or creativity. Read a book, write a poet or ten, do some embroidery, make something on my sewing machine, without the nagging guilt of thinking I should get to grips with the gardening or do more housework. 

Back to that great flash of light now. The main shocking thought that came in the blinding light was this; Life is just too bloody short. People say that a lot don’t they, ‘Don’t worry, life’s too short.’ But it’s true. How on earth am I going to read everything I want to read and keep up with all my favourite author’s latest best sellers? All the theatre visits, all the movies. The Camino de Santiago needs walking. 

AND. Here is the annoying bit. I am not a lazy person. WTF do lazy people get through? How do they plan to change the world? I run around at the speed of light trying to get through everything and still cannot claw my way to the end of the list. Rushing around like one of those flies with the blue end, until after dinner I sit down and find that I cannot keep my eyes open past 9pm. 

AND that’s another thing. I have had enough of all this PC nonsense. Its getting to the point where there will be nothing that one can say that does not offend somebody else, somewhere else. My first job, was started on the Monday morning after going for an interview immediately after leaving school at 4pm, running down into the town, still in my uniform, the previous Friday. My first boss, Mr Collier and his lovely wife, continued my education by attacking my sheltered ears and widening my eyes considerably during the several years I worked for them. Mr Collier had lots of funny expressions that would be frowned upon these days. “I see it all now, some of it, said the blind man waving his wooden leg”, was a favourite of his as was “Well cut off my legs and call me Shorty,” if you told him something he didn’t know. That was one non PC side of him. He also insisted that I read his newspaper during my lunch break. Then during the afternoon, when it was quieter in the shop he and his wife would ask me what I thought about this article or that. They never told me not to be stupid either. They did raise an eyebrow here and there though.

Anyway, I’m not playing anymore, because I think it has all got pretty silly. Do you remember when the comics and everybody else told Irish jokes? Later in life I discovered that they were more of less the same jokes that the Dutch told about Belgians, although they usually involved chips! The same jokes more or less that many Americans told about people from Oklahoma. My favourite piece of bad humour was for some years the one about the Irish tap dancer who fell in the sink! So I’m Not Playing. At least not for the rest of the day, I may calm down later. Rant over.... for now. Watch this space.