Tag Archives: second chance

Dull Diary Day

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This morning I rose before I wanted to, made the normal breakfast and got dressed. I noted that there was a little more traffic on the road than usual but lighter than a normal school day – school is due back today, so the lack of traffic must be down to me being earlier than usual. That’s something to note for future use.

Painted Lady on the front brickwork

There was a Painted Lady sunning itself on the front of the bungalow when I got home. I took a couple of shots with my phone but the shadow of my sticks, held under my arm as I struggled with the phone, scared it away. It seems wrong to refer to a butterfly called a Painted Lady as “it” but half the Painted Ladies that I see must be male and it seems even worse to call them all “she”.

I still don’t know how to download photos from the phone, so I used a simple and direct method, as seen in the second photo.

Me and technology are not friends, so I transferred the photo by photographing it

We have had a surplus of tomatoes this year, even on our few plants. Julia made tomato sauce yesterday and it will be going into ratatouille, pasta bake and curry this week. Now the weather is cooling, I feel more like cooking.

Today’s emails brought a copy of an on-line haiku magazine. This was a surprise, as I had not had a rejection from them. Sometimes it happens.  Things must inevitably slip through the net when dealing with hundreds of emails. Paper is so much simpler to keep track of, but I try to be paperless and often lose track. However, it’s better for the planet and, to be honest, more convenient for me. I rarely submit if people want paper submissions.

Painted Lady on Red Campion

Anyway, I had been needing some haiku to round off my submissions for this month and this gives me ten to use. I just had a look at them and, despite none being accepted this time, feel they are in with a chance if given a second chance. There is always a little sunshine if you look.

A Letter to my 14-Year-Old Self

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I looked at a writing website for some ideas and I quite liked this title. I’ve recently been thinking about the teenage me and this merges with it very nicely. It’s going to be ten point because I’m still practising ten point lists.

So, point one for the teenage me is – you are going to be a failure in life, so don’t worry about success. All it will do is add an extra level of disappointment to the failure.

Point two, Stand up for yourself. I don’t mean just making a token gesture of dissent, I mean really digging in and refusing to cooperate. People will give way in many cases just to get a quiet life. You see it all the time in life – the most selfish people, who shout the loudest are the ones who get their way.

Point three, see above. When the broken down hack of a metalwork teacher masquerading as a careers advisor shouts at you not to waste his time because “everybody says teaching when they can’t think of anything else to say” go straight to the Headmaster’s Office and complain like hell. He’s only a careers advisor because he was a crap metalwork teacher.

Point four – do stuff. Don’t just end up on the scrapheap as a sixty year-old-man with arthritis and a duff prostate. Buy bigger motorcycles, fall off more of them, at least you will have an excuse for arthritis. And beat that jerk of a metalwork teacher to within an inch of his miserable wasted life.

Point five – don’t regret not getting  a degree, beat the metalwork teacher to death and remember that a life sentence can be as little as 15 years. You can do an OU degree in that time and have time left over to write an autobiography in that time. It didn’t do John McVicar any harm.

Point six, don’t bottle up old grudges against metalwork teachers.

Point seven, don’t worry, it will work out alright. People generally don’t starve to death in the UK and the council won’t let you rot in the gutter when you die. Even if you end up going through the bins behind McDonald’s it’s still better than being a metalwork teacher.

Point eight, spots are transitory.

Point nine, so is hair, Get used to the idea.

Point ten, die during lockdown. That way people won’t notice you had no friends.