Biscuits

I started off by writing a post called “Things I Wish I’d Done”. By the time I’d done 150 words I’d depressed myself and, if I’d published it, would probably have spread this depression round. It is currently dispersing itself in cyber space, a selection of pixels slowly growing smaller a bits flake off. The only thing that survives is the title and a memory, but the way my brain is going, the memory will be gone fairly soon.

That’s the beauty and the tragedy of memory. Long term memory survives (which is why my Dad could still beat me at dominoes when he was over 90 and suffering with dementia). The tragedy is that you can remember all your mistakes with painful clarity. But you can’t do anything about it.

Anyway, enough about memories. I bet you’re wondering how far I got with my planning for next year. Having said that, anyone who has read this blog before isn’t going to be expecting too much. In fact, my dedication to procrastination is so pronounced that I’ve just been tidying my desk rather than getting down to any actual work.

Peppermint creams in preparation

The facts of this morning are that I got up, started work just before 8.00, wrote a post I deleted, looked at a few comments, checked emails, had breakfast, decided to have some toast, made coffee, washed up, watched birds and squirrels, sat at the desk, tidied desk, paid some bills and finally wrote something. As you are probably already thinking – it wasn’t worth the build-up.

I’m off to boil some eggs and make cauliflower soup now. I’m doing a dozen pickled eggs for Christmas – six ordinary, six with chilli. That should see us through to New Year and after that I intend trying to make a new recipe a week and try to bake every week. That, as you may have noticed, has no bearing on my poetry plans for 2026. I did however, write about baking in a poem I had published in Contemporary Haibun Online.

I had the title for years, because I’d used it for a blog. It looks like I had the title for nine years, in fact. It took me starting to bake again before I found a poem to go with it. It’s not even original, I pinched it from The General of the Dead Army by Ismail Kadare.

Look at that, an effortless slide from biscuits to Albanian novelists. Makes you wonder what this blog is coming to, doesn’t it? There was a time it was all compost, alternative toilets and sausages. Those were the glory days when I was trying to make the world a better place. Now I’m just happy if the world is still there when I wake up in the morning.

Poppies and corn wreath