journal of a writing man

Wednesday June 20, 2007

Graham has tasked himself to replace the floor in the hall and cloakroom this week so we’re not doing the excursions I’d hoped during his last week before the summer season.

“You mean you’d rather do vinyl planking than go to see Cheddar Gorge?”

“Yup.”

“And the Malvern Hills?”

“Yup.”

“And Bodmin Moor?”

“Yup. Make some tea, why don’t you?”

Make some tea, why don’t you?

And so my carefully planned week of minor excursions, packed lunches, and Somerset Cream Teas, came tumbling down once more. I think I shall have to go see these places by myself over the summer during Graham’s working weeks when he’s at the holiday camp.

It’s a funny expression that, isn’t it? ‘Over the summer,’ I mean. Tomorrow is the longest day, unless they’ve been fiddling with the calendar again, and then the evenings will start drawing in once more. You’d think that this would be the height of summer rather than what we think of as its beginning.

Don’t you believe it. Logical or not, this coming weekend, the start of the holiday season, is when we get out the picnic set, secure supplies of methylated spirit for the spirit stove, and stock up on strawberries and cream. And Robinsons Lemon and Barley water.

Regardless of the weather, or the movements of the heavenly bodies, summer for us English will start on Saturday. Us English have a lot to be thankful for.

Speaking of deeply philosophical matters, and there’s not much in life that’s more deeply philosophical than strawberries and cream, I heard an outrageously anthropomorphic statement from some silly ‘expert’ on the radio today. “Animals,” she said, “unlike humans, do not have a sense of the abstract. Only humans can use memories of what was over the hill, and return to it.”

Silly woman. Has she never heard of migration? The annual migration of the birds is the pursuit of an abstract target if ever I saw one.

I can’t be doing with this ’superiority over the Animal Kingdom’ bit. I have come to the conclusion, after a lifetime of observation, that the only thing we have over animals is an opposing thumb and a credit card. Even they are not unconditional benefits. The one gets arthritis. The other gets you deeper in debt.

Wednesday June 20, 2007

I’m experimenting here, to see if I have all the steps in place to scan and upload a drawing.  Not to be taken entirely seriously at this stage. Or any future stage, come to think of it.

First lesson to be learned — do not use a blunt stub of pencil…