A Disorderly Retirement
Here we go again – I’ve been overcome by a fit of self-improvement. It’s what happens when I don’t have a trip to plan and my mind is looking for something else to occupy it. I’m on another of those endless and fruitless quests to improve my French. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy these…
I can’t believe that it’s nearly a month since I wrote my last blog. I had got into such good habits during lockdown. Back then, with oceans of time available, it was no problem finding a few hours a week in order to write a short piece based on whatever thoughts happened to be flitting…
We recently spent a few days in Buxton, Derbyshire, where we stayed in a wonderfully traditional English guesthouse and generally felt as though we’d travelled back in time. This very proper spa town has a long history of genteel people visiting to take the waters to ease their various ailments, including Mary Queen of Scots,…
I wonder if everyone is still madly doing Wordle? After conducting a brief and highly unscientific survey of half a dozen people I would guess not as much as they were. We love novelty, but only while it’s still novel and then we get bored and move on. I think the man who invented Wordle…
I have just read about a Microsoft study claiming that the average person has an attention span of 8 seconds, 1 less than a goldfish. A quick Google search revealed that the study was done in 2015, so it’s hardly breaking news and I don’t know why it’s being reported now. Perhaps our ability to…
It all started when I got lost in the woods. This is particularly embarrassing because the woods are directly across the road from our house and I have been walking in them for 30 years. Everything was fine until I decided to be adventurous and head off down a new path. On the whole, I…
This week we have been clearing out the loft. It would have been much more exciting if we’d had an attic to clear out instead. Lofts are so dreary – forgotten spaces in the eaves, smelling of old suitcases and mouldering clothes – but attics are so much more glamorous, containing the promise of adventure…
People say that life is short, but I think they’re wrong. Maybe it’s short compared with the age of the universe (13.8 billion years old apparently), but if you’re lucky I think it’s really quite long. I know this is true because when I look back on my 1960s English childhood it seems like something…
I’ve been wondering if you can take the philosophy of make-do-and-mend too far in peacetime. I relish that way of thinking, but am concerned about turning into a parody of myself. Although I suspect this happens to everyone by the time they reach 50 anyway. People just seem to become more and more of what…
This week I’ve been wondering how you know when it’s time to go. I’m not talking about whether you really should leave your friends’ house as the evening wears on and first they start yawning extravagantly and then one of them reappears in their pyjamas with their toothbrush in hand. I’m talking about when you…