Tag Archives: thinking

Some Thoughts of a Retired Gent

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Tufted Duck

It’s a bit nippy this morning but the heating is on and I have plenty of clothes, so it’s not going to be a problem.  Christmas, which is coming rapidly, is always a time to think about people sleeping rough and that leads on to thoughts of refugees. It’s a privilege to go to sleep at night with the knowledge that in the morning your roof will still be there. That’s not something you can rely on if you live in Gaza or Ukraine.

So, this morning, I’m not going to complain about faulty Amazon deliveries or the iniquities of our local Post Office, which are both at the forefront of my mind.  When I moved to Peterborough I thought of changing my monthly donations to local charities dealing with the homeless, because dad and mum used to volunteer for the local soup kitchen. I had a look at the website details of the local soup kitchen this morning but decided to donate to one of the associated charities that gets people off the streets. In a way, I feel like it’s the easy way out, but I’m not sure I’d be a lot of use making sandwiches or serving drinks all night.

Goosander male

Meanwhile, as I sat and watched a bit of TV with my morning coffee, I watched Fake or Fortune, an episode on musical instruments. Establishing provenance should have been a piece of cake compared to some of the paintings they research, as they only needed to go back to the 1960s. However, nobody seemed to be able to remember back to the 1960s and 70s, so it all petered out without a positive identification. The laws of libel probably prevent me commenting on the causes of this amnesia.

Despite the title, these aren’t all the thoughts I have had today. I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to put in tonight’s coleslaw, for instance, plus “What was that?” (it was a picture falling off the wall after Julia had straightened it) and “Why didn’t I make a note last time?” when I had to order new bags for the kitchen bin. It’s a busy place, my head, though not necessarily as orderly as I would like it to be.

Photos are water birds from December 2016.

Mallard drake

 

A Cold Day for Thinking

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Tree, Fountain, Leisure Centre – Sneinton market

I’m having trouble thinking and writing at the same time. This isn’t always a problem, as I have proved time and time again that I can write without thinking. However, it’s cold, I’m listening to music and I’m in a rush to get a lot of stuff written before I have to deliver another carful of junk to the new bungalow.

I don’t think well in the cold, and I don’t think well in the presence of music. I know lots of people find it helpful, but I’m not one of them. It’s just distracting noise. I’m also annoyed by the commentary. It’s a You Tube Video about forgotten bands of the 1960s. The Zombies, The Tremoloes, The Hollies, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces . . .

Christmas Bazaar

I’m not convinced they’ve been forgotten, and I keep having to stop writing to moan at the presenter. They can’t, of course, hear me, but it makes me feel better. I’m going to have to switch it off in a minute as i need to get some work done. I’m going to be offline for a few days and if I wait until I’m back I will have missed a deadline. Yes, I know it’s only poetry, but it’s one I don’t want to miss. I don’t want to send anything that’s not good enough either, so I’m going to review what I have available (rejection is just the start of a new submission, after all) and see if there is anything worth sending. I have at least one ready but I’m not happy with the haiku.

Gingerbread Women

Julia has just come back from an unsuccessful trip round a craft fair  so we are going to have lunch now and, after I finish the submission, we are off for the weekend. We are having more stuff delivered tomorrow, then a new typing chair on Monday. I’ve gone heavy duty and comfortable, because I’m going to be spending a lot of time in it and I don’t want either deep vein thrombosis or a broken chair.

I’m feeling quite energetic today, which I attribute to eating proper meals again. It’s just a shame that I will have to report that lunch was a Festive Sausage Roll (it had cranberry sauce and stuffing in it) and three sushi portions Julia bought back from her shopping expedition. I suppose sushi is healthy . . .

Santa works his magic

Photos are from December 2015.

 

Day 100 (Part 2)

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This was the alternative post I was thinking of making today. I was going to post it later but I thought I’f do it then move on.

this morning I lay in be thinking. I often do that on Sunday, then go back to sleep for an hour or two. I have nothing pressing to do and getting up late helps to differentiate Sunday from other days. On other days I may lie in bed and think, but I do it under the pressur of knowing taht I have to get up.

This morning I thought it would be nice to find a Chinese restaurant that serves businessman’s lunches, as they used to be called, and take Julia out on Wednesday. We used to go to one in Matlock when we were out during the week – a no frills two course meal with coffee for very little money. We lost the habit over the years, and it has been a long time since I thought about it.

That led me on to all you can eat buffets and the lesson I learnt that I actually enjoyed them  more if I didn’t fill myself up to the ears. When you are paying a fixed price and presented with a lot of food it is always a temptation. It’s also tempting to fill up on several plates of snacks before attempting to eat several main courses.

The plan I eventually settled on was to eat a good selection of snacks, some pancakes and duck, and then move on to a main course made up of two or three dishes. You still eat plenty that way and get value for money. You don’t however, feel bloated, ill, unable t move or gluttonously greedy. Once I adopted the new method I found myself enjoying the e experience a lot more.

At one time three of us used to joke that we ought to go for one of these buffets and see what the management did. I can, as you may have gathered, shift a lot of food, and it shows. X, as I will refer to him, who was often mistaken for my brother due to size and ginger beard, was similarly placed and Y, the third of us, was built along the lines traditionally used by coopers in making large barrels.

We never did do it. Y died in his 40s, mainly due to an hereditary heart condition. Y died due to diabetes when he was 50, a sad end to man who served in the Territorial Army for 12 years and used to do a couple of ten mile runs a week.

That just leaves me. Sixty three but with a body at least ten, if not twenty years older. I hadn’t until today, really put it all together. It also dawned on me that two of the people who were at Y’s funeral are also dead now. One at 64 as his body just gave out due to weight and lifestyle (much the same as me) and one from a recurrence of his cancer.

It was a sobering thought, and  one that made me think seriously before eating during the day. The only difference between me and the others is that I eat better quality fresh food. Several of them took more exercise than I do, and two or three were probably thinner.

It feels like today was a cross-roads. Sorry for being a bit too serious, but it’s something I want to note down for posterity.

And now I’ve written it down I can forget about it.

Pope Benedict XVI

Cardinal Newman

 

You can decide for yourself whether the pictures are about me getting religion or about me collecting medallions. 🙂

 

Thinking After Midnight

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I didn’t start writing until after midnight last night. Or, more accurately, I didn’t start writing until after midnight this morning. The second sentence is the more accurate, I think, but it looks wrong.

That was the trouble with the blog post I produced. Something was wrong with it and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It started with words like “vicious cycle” and “good habits” and slid (via an historically inaccurate view of Boadicea with a knife-equipped chariot) into a discussion on  the change of Boadicea’s name to Boudicca and how I wouldn’t mind giving monastic life a go if it featured more carpeting. It’s hard to write a blog post based on such stuff. Finally, at 1 am, after several edits, I decided it wasn’t working and binned the lot.

I think what happened was that under the influence of fatigue, the punning part of my brain broke free and started playing with words. It does that sometimes. If you ever happen to be sitting next to me when I start smiling for no discernable reason it’s because two words have just connected in my head and the result has amused me.

I may be doing something like watching TV, listening to a speech or typing a blog post. but my mind is miles away. I may be in a coin shop in Nottingham discussing the price of packaging to Austria, but inside my head I am in Morecambe, or the Karoo or 1642. I have inherited this from my father.  He had the ability to hold a conversation on one subject while his brain was engaged in calculating something completely different. That, I think, sums up the similarities and differences between the two of us. We both have the ability to think about two things at the same time, but he would be solving a problem at work, while I just conjure up mental images of a bicycle with knives attached to its wheels.

Meanwhile, I have come up with a photo for my biographical notes. It is reasonably accurate but by using one that already exists I can avoid tidying myself up. It may need some work doing on the size as it seems rather large when you open the page. Meanwhile, I’m tempted by the pink one, but I’m not sure it presents quite the right image. It’s the sort of photo that you get when you leave a camera unattended in a monkey enclosure.

The Pink One

The Porridge from Porlock

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As I sat on the edge of the bed to put my socks on (yes, old age is catching up on me) I ran a scene from my imaginary life through my head. It was the one where I appear on BBC Breakfast after winning a major poetry award and impress a watching TV executive so much that I am offered a chance to have my own TV show, wandering round the countryside talking and eating in tearooms.

There would, inevitably, be a string of offers to appear in other TV work, followed by a celebrity lifestyle and a book contract. Obviously, a man who has to sit down to put his socks on isn’t going to be doing Strictly Come Dancing or I’m a Celebrity… but I’d be happy to do Celebrity Gogglebox.  When it comes to sitting round watching TV and talking rubbish, I flatter myself that I have few equals.

I was sitting in a studio, putting forward the idea that I was the Jackson Pollock of poetry, just throwing words at pieces of paper, when a sudden (and unusual) profound thought came into my mind.

“As soon as I get downstairs,” I thought, “I will write that down. There is the basis for a scholarly essay in there and it will establish me as a leading light in the poetry establishment.”

Well, that’s what it would have sounded like if I thought that way. What I actually thought was “Oooo!” That’s pretty much the reality of my thinking. If you add the word “shiny” that covers 90% of my thoughts these days. I know I’m supposed to think about sex every seven seconds according to the research, but frankly, I can’t fit it in. (Yes, I’ve been watching too many Carry On films over Christmas…)

Talking of thinking, I found this article very interesting. Before you read it, think of a white bear, and don’t click the link until you’ve finished thinking about it. When you stop thinking about the white bear and read the article, all will become clear.

Anyway, I got downstairs (another thing that I used to take for granted but which takes a bit of thought these days) and Julia was making porridge. She put sliced banana and blueberries in it because she thinks I should eat more fruit. And, as I ate the delicious fruity porridge, I realised that I had forgotten the rare and precious thought.

And that, so far, is the story of 2021. I had, as you can probably guess, no picture of porridge with fruit in it, so I offer a picture of plums instead.

 

A short walk and a short post

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This morning I took the car down to the garage for servicing and MOT and walked back. On the way I composed a haibun in my head. This afternoon I will make the reverse trip and return with a heavy heart and a light wallet. I will compose a lament on the drive back.

When I returned I carried on with the reading and replying that I started last night. I particularly enjoyed this one, which led to me finding this.

I have had a telephone consultation with a nurse practitioner at the Treatment Centre and she has ensnared me with another blood test. I thought I was free of them for a month or two. Ah well. My pills will be ready for me too. After that they will release me to the care of my GP. They haven’t been distinguished for their efficiency recently so I’m not looking forwards to this.

If you will excuse me, I really need to write down the haibun while it is still in my head. They do tend to melt away these days unless I am careful.

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Oak Tree – Quercus Robur

A single oak tree can support over 400 species – the most biodiverse plant in the UK.

Nothing much to report

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When I looked in the polytunnels just after lunch it sounded like it was raining. The pitter pat of raindrops was actually coming from hover flies in the tunnel flying into the roof in an attempt to get out. I tried to shoo a few out of the open door but they weren’t very cooperative.

That was pretty much the only thing I saw of interest as I toured the grounds looking for things to photograph. I need pictures of white butterflies for the butterfly page (see under the Resources tab) but the only ones I can get lack detail (a) because the white doesn’t show up well and (b) because they rarely open their wings when they are feeding.

I also find them a bit more skittish than most other species: years of been attacked by angry

cabbage owners has obviously made them more alert than the Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell.

I’ve just taken another walk round but evening is drawing on and there’s not a single butterfly in sight. There is a lot of noise from an aeroplane practising aerobatics somewhere above the cloud level and I got a couple of shots of a pigeon perching on one of the statues but there’s very little happening at all.

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It’s not as if I’m a whirl of activity either, so I can’t really lecture the world for being quiet.

Inside I’m buzzing, but in terms of actual work being done I’m not showing to advantage. I have too much to do at the moment and at a time I’d like to have had a day or two to slow down I’ve been given more to do.

However, if there’s one thing that’s certain in life it is that things change. It may seem like my head is about to burst at the moment but in a couple of weeks it will be back to empty, so why worry?

having written that, I can feel everything falling into place. The mind is indeed a strange thing.