Well, this month's post, anyway.
Off shortly for a trip up north, to see the greenery, and some old ruins. But that's enough about the relatives. Just a week, but that is probably enough. No internet access, no telly, so hardship of sorts for the younglings. I will encourage them to sit and look at the Roman Wall. Really, its aspect changes throughout the day, as the dappled sunlight contends with the driving rain, in an ever-changing performance that has been running daily for thirty times longer than the Mousetrap. Well, I'll try.
Lizzie the cat is stalking flies as I write. She is as yet unaware that she will shortly have to sit in her travelling box for seven hours. This is not cruelty on our part - it is simply stubbornness on hers. She just won't come out, or do anything at all for the entire duration of the journey. She just sits in what the children have dubbed her 'happy prison'.
The weather forecast is good. Hooray.
So it's gone off, delivered. 138,000 + words of it. Now I can do nothing but await the marking of my homework.
I've never finished a book before, so perhaps this counts as a 'peak' experience. These are supposed to be good for you, and you are supposed to have lots of them to keep ahead and find meaning in our shallow 'me me me' world. A bit like vegetables, but less often than five times a day, and more fun. But, alas, things like bunjee jumping and stoat swallowing have never really appealed to me, and I have been consistently unable to shift the thought that too many peak experiences must surely leave one feeling a bit peaky. I have to speak up here for the Timid Tendency, the sort of person who, much like Victoria Wood, gets overexcited if they get flowery patterns on their kitchen roll.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding (ooh, those authorial touches - love 'em) I thought I would share an unstructured list of peak and novel experiences what I have recently had (slipping there..) with all of you - or at least you singular.
1. The evening before the last game of the Premiership (football) season, a near neighbour knocked on the door and thrust two Chelsea season tickets into my astonished hand. The rest of me became astonished shortly afterwards. So, thanks to the generosity of this man, who could not go to the crunch game of the season, myself and the boy went and saw the Blues the next afternoon. The little one had never been to a Premiership game, and this was a belter to start with - at least in theory. The stadium was heaving and very noisy, the pitch was a vivid green, and all Chelsea needed to do was beat or draw with Bolton, provided that and without prejudice to the generality of the former, Manchester United lost to Wigan. Long story scissors - United won, Chelsea drew, but the SUSPENSE! Very peaky.
2. I went to a college reunion. Three sub peaks. First, I was asked to pray for the soul of Robert Maxwell in a chapel service. Now that is a definite one off. Two, my old tutor remembered me. This was more of a biggie than it sounds, because I had seen him eight years ago and he didn't remember me on that occasion. This was rather a disappointment at the time, but I figured there had been hundreds if punks like me through his hands while I had only ever known one tutor as generous with his time and as influential in my life. So drawing a blank with a man who had had about three hundred students since me was not such a surprise. But this time he remembered my name, and even one or two things about me, which was quite pleasing. Last up, someone I had not talked to for thirty years confirmed to me just what a nasty piece of work another teacher I had had when twelve really was. Bonus there.
These three things had pointy peak quality, and the fact that the college food had improved immeasurably wasn't far behind, along with the discovery that one of my contemporaries runs Iraq for the British Army, as 2nd i c of the General Staff. Post script: I held a door open for him and he smiled, saying "Well, we all have to have a second job, don't we?" You don't hit someone with mates like that.
3. I saw someone, whom I know to be a persistent and remorseless liar, utterly discredited on a witness stand, under oath. A very satisfactory piece of self-destruction by an exceptionally nasty individual, for a good cause and in a court of law. That was really good, and will not come again.
4. I played on a record for an old friend whom I had not seen for about six years. He has been through some hard times and his genius with a certain kind of pop song production I assumed had been lost to us. But he is back, the record looks like it will go chartwards, and I might be back on the airwaves for the first time since a dance floor filler and all round thumping tune I was on in 2001. That definitely won't happen too many times more.
5. Went out for an evening's music and chat with the lovely Zoe and her posse. We heard Tony Benn speak, but unfortunately due to the very loud young people with their amplifiers and suchlike I didn't really get to hear Zoe speak as well as I would have liked. That can be remedied, but I doubt I'll hear TB again.
6. Recently, in the British Library, quite by surprise I found a speech made by one of my great grandfathers quoted in a book on Indian history. I wanted to nudge the person next door, but restrained myself - not done y'know - so I celebrated by spending the family's food budget for the week on a sandwich in Leith's tea bar.
So, life hasn't entirely run out of gas at fifty. That I find reassuring.