CLOUDBURST

Other people have mentioned how spectacular the clouds were across Great Britain last Friday, and this was also true of where we were, tucked away just off the north-west corner of Wales. As we strolled around on what was finally a spectacular summer’s day,  it was hard not to notice that the cloud sculptures that were forming and dancing around in the skies above our heads were beginning to resemble something from a renaissance painting.

They were so picturesque, in fact that it became necessary to start pointing the camera at the sky instead of at the scenery and blast off a burst of shots which couldn’t hope to do justice to this amazing natural wonder, but which do, hopefully, at least give a sense of the artistic genius that was being painted in the skies that day.

The first was taken in a car park in Beaumaris, the “car park” aspect of which doesn’t sound quite like the kind of scene that would have inspired any renaissance masterpieces, but then I don’t suppose that car parks were much of a feature of the landscape back in those days.

The other three were taken from another car park (such is their ubiquity now), at Penmon, pointing the lens north, south (towards the lighthouse) and west over the island.

A lovely day and some astonishing cloudscapes. I hope that, perhaps, you will get at least some small sense of how wonderful they were from these unworthy snapshots, which really cannot hope to give you more than just the merest notion of that spectacular show which was happening in the skies that day, but will, I hope, at least, show you some of it.

Beaumaris 270712

Penmon 270712

Penmon 270712

Penmon 270712

ESCAPE TO YNYS MÔN

So anyway, I recently spent a week away – as best I could - from all types of personal technology which, as we all know, these days is almost entirely the same as being dead in this great big modern world of ours, except of course that it isn’t.

In fact, being away from all those bleeps and buzzes and rings and little irritations that come along with those things made me feel rather more alive than I actually had in a long time. The only moment when not having access to eine electronischedevisen, öder ein “Gizmo” (as I suddenly feel the need to refer to such things for no very good reason) became a slight problem was when we arrived at a much vaunted restaurant at just after 1.30 in the afternoon only to discover that they served lunches until from 12.00 to 1.30, which, considering the three mile drive through a maze of side roads, I like to think that they could have mentioned on the sign pointing off the main road.

Obviously, looking up their website would have prevented that little irritation from occurring, but equally, it was hardly the most tragic occurrence, and we did find somewhere else to eat. Equally, being “on holiday” should mean that you have a more “que sera sera” approach to your days as you drift around in unfamiliar territory.

And my! Aren’t I getting all multi-lingual today? It’s all this travelling, you see…? It broadens even the narrowest of minds…

Granted there might be those who suggest that being on Ynys Môn for a week is almost exactly the same as being dead anyway, but I would say “Yah, boo, sucks!” to that sort of suggestion, even if it was coming from me, in a manner designed to prove that I’ve not quite yet managed to have my mind completely broadened.

I did, of course, find that I had accidentally actually taken an electronic device with me, because I realised that my “work phone” was still in my jacket pocket when we arrived, but when I was caught idly (or perhaps craftily and surreptitiously) trying to switch it on during a quiet moment as I was listening to the test match on Sunday evening, my “media disease” was swiftly frowned upon and it didn’t happen again, perhaps not least because the battery life in these things is appalling and I hadn’t forgotten not to take the charging lead along with me.

Actually, though, it was a blessed relief to be free of the things for a few days. I rather hope that you can’t imagine how invasive those things can be when all you want to do is get away from them. I know that if I had switched the wretched thing on at all at any time for the rest of the duration, one of those little red lights would have been flashing away telling me that there was a “notification” of some message or other that was probably being quite successfully dealt with in my absence.

Me being me, however, I would have fretted and flapped and focussed about it and would simply have HAD to go and read it, which would have left me stroppy and anxious and, in the end, would have completely defeated the purpose of being on holiday at all, which was, of course, a rather desperate need to get away from it all, stop thinking about it all the time and to do something else for a change whilst spending some quality time with my beloved and not have to share around pieces of myself with the rest of the world and all that it demands of me.

In fact I still struggle to come to terms with the amount of people I see sitting on beaches staring at their little boxes, still desperate to stay in touch with their home life. As a child, one of the utter joys of my holidays was the chance to get away from the everyday and those dreary mundanities of real life and the same old faces, but I suppose that the world has changed, even in those faraway places, and people want to be able to keep in touch with those very same people that I would cross continents to get away from for a while.

And, of course, despite all of my fears, being away from my little web-based world didn’t stop it from turning. The world managed to tick along quite happily without me for a week and, upon my return it became swiftly apparent that hardly anyone had even noticed that I’d been away.

This should, of course, have given me the final push to properly decide to stay away permanently, but a long afternoon of trying to upload my holiday snaps to some website or other soon pulled me back in to the twisted web of website checking, albeit with a slightly refreshed point of view.

After all, when the only person who seems aware of your absence is a Twitter acquaintance from half a world away, and your blog counter shows that you’re read almost as much when you write nothing as when you write something, and your little red flags on your social networking site number precisely one, and your personal email account contains – after you’ve sifted through all of the detritus – also just one personal message, it does tend to make you think about how important you are to it and, consequently, how much importance you tend to give it that it really doesn’t deserve. But then getting away from it all can do that to you and give you a fresh perspective on just about everything, really…

Anyway, my week on Ynys Môn was very pleasant, thank you for asking, and whilst it didn’t quite let me escape from my media disease entirely, and I didn’t quite manage to fully escape the horrors of the run-up to the Festival of Five Hoops and was therefore fully aware of the terrifying morning-time televisual resurrection of Sian Williams after I’d thought that we were finally rid of her, I was even relaxed enough to deal with that, too.

I’m sure I’ll be talking about all of these things in greater depth sometime soon, so, as ever, stay tuned…

OLD HABITS

Habits are funny old things and very hard to break. Take, for example, my decision to take a month off from this wild and wacky world of writing my nonsenses each morning. Well, you’ll no doubt be less surprised than I was to find that I haven’t stopped at all. In fact I’ve published something every single day since, just “not for public consumption” as it were, in a place I’m calling the “Alternative”.

This, I feel, is part of the process of healing. There’s stuff that I need to get out of my system, but all the issues that were bothering me over those last few weeks are still there, and all of the things mentioned in that fateful so-called “Last Post” remain as true as they did then, so the best thing to do is to “let rip” in a place where nobody else is likely to get hurt or bothered by my excesses.

So, what have you been “missing” in the sense of “not really missing at all” then…?

((Oh yes, bloody typical! Tell us about the stuff you’re writing but don’t let us actually read it… How very…))

Well, day one was about my “media disease” and included the words “beauty”, “private” and “consumption” and is really so very ranty that I don’t think anyone else would want to read it, not until I’ve managed to cogitate and reshape those thoughts into a more palatable form…

Day two was about it being “Halfway to Christmas” and even makes me weep now when I look at it, being all about depression and my own smug sense of self-satisfaction about something and uses the expression “double-dipping” for no very good reason.

Day three was just “Henry Brie” in its original form before I plonked it over into “Light Under a Bushel” so nothing new to see there, and was followed by three more days spent wittering on and mulling over and cogitating upon the general sense of change that has come over my world due to events beyond and within my own control, and really, really, there’s nothing in there that I would have felt comfortable in sharing with anyone else.

It even makes me shudder when I read back the pretentious drivvle that was mashing through my mind in those long dark days, as the rain lashed down and I gave thought to fledging birds and cricket (which at least proved that I was thinking about something else at last) before returning to the tired old themes that had been haunting me these past few weeks about my own insignificant role in the great scheme of things.

Sigh… The monotony of it all was even getting to me by now. Believe me when I say that you really weren’t missing much and were better off out of it…

After that I spent some time analysing in minute detail a particular problem that I had with one individual who may very well have only ever been an imaginary construct, but that was a mental battle best fought alone, and then I spent another few mornings assessing some very personal family matters that you really don’t want to see, and that was so very tiresome that I did it again three days later.

Meanwhile, I decided to immortalise some stupid comments I made about the theatre over in FizzBokWorld that wouldn’t be new to anyone who’d already seen them, but I somehow were felt worthy of keeping for my own pointless sense of self-immolation.

The day after that was spent on a bit of a rant about “3-D Cinema” which actually wasn’t all that bad. Boring… but not “bad” and which at least proved to me that I could move beyond the four walls of my own self-absorption and scribble the sort of nonsense that I used to do, even if it was deathly dull. But perhaps it meant that I had turned a corner and was ready to re-engage with this bizarre world of boot-kicking my opinions out into the wider world and seeing where they landed and what ripples they caused.

The fact that it remains “hidden” does, I suppose, rather imply that I’m not quite ready or confident to do so quite yet, but we’ll see. The words are, after all, flowing relatively freely, it’s just that they’re not yet words that are fit to be seen in polite company and need to be sent back to there room and told to dress properly.

So, what does all this “stopping” in the sense of  “not stopping at all” really prove, if anything?

“F***ed if I know, matey…”

But there you are. Wasn’t that always the way of these things? Perhaps it was always just words for words sake, and perhaps I keep on putting down those words, even in the privacy of my own little world, because I know that if I do get out of the habit I will stop forever, and I’m really not sure that I’m quite ready to do that yet, either.

So, if you think you’re missing something by the lack of daily updates from this “Dark Corner of Lesser Blogfordshire” you’ll just have to accept it when I tell you that you’re really not missing all that much…

Not at the moment anyway, but the machinery is, at least, in motion, and I’m just hoping that the virtual WD40 will do the trick and release the seized mechanism from the rusty grip that held it.

Still, I must be missing something. After all, I did think that it might be nice to just drop by today and say hello… which must be a positive step.

So, er… “Hello…” and, of course, “Goodbye again…”

FRIENDLY PERSUASION

First, there were comments like these…

In which case I can only say that we all lose including yourself.

Please do stay with us.

Well if this really is the end of the line, I can honestly say that I will miss you. I hope you will continue in some way. If so, please make sure that your loyal readers know about it.

Take a break, by all means, but please, don't abandon us completely!

Go weekly or monthly but don't stop…

(The more astute of you will notice that I’ve edited much of these comments to my own advantage, a bit like those review extracts which they put on the posters outside West End theatres… “Brilliant!” [Daily Mail] – extracted from the line “As least my drink in the interval was a rather brilliant Chablis…”)

But then there was also a lengthy critique which included this…

I'm quite fed up with people who think being a jerk is their privilege and entitlement. Sadly, I never in a million years thought you'd be perfect at it… I truly wish you nothing but the best, only with me not in it… 

So I said this…

I have a “media disease” and I need to go “cold turkey” and see whether I can kick the habit. I am very sure that I shall fail and crack far, far too soon and be back before you know it, shame-faced, tail between the legs and so forth, but I do have to try…

 I have been very touched by the merest notion that these ramblings will be missed, but I really, really DO have to try and escape this trap that I’ve made for myself... 

Which got a reply which included this…

You know what? Your arrogance sickens me. I leave here knowing you are indeed full of cr*p. 

After mulling it over I decided not to ‘publish’ that and ‘moderated’ it to comment hell… Nevertheless, this was, after all, just confirmation of what I had been thinking anyway, and, despite the rumours, I am a sensitive soul, so I was beginning to feel that I had probably made the right choice…

Meanwhile, somebody else had already observed that it…

Seems like blogging is a f***ing responsibility f***ing minefield. 

Which rather underscored the problem.

But then I read this…

I'll just keep checking then. I'm off on my travels tomorrow and I have virtually no idea where I'm going but I imaging it could be an interesting time. Yes, I'll just keep checking then. 

And these…

Yeah, I'll just keep checking too. It's my habit anyway to check this every day before I start work.
Maybe if we shout for long enough we'll get an encore?

Hope so. Just checked again - only silence..

I too keep checking in. Part of my daily routine seems to be missing without this. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a change of heart. I really do hope so! 

And in other places people said things like this…

I just think you should know that your work is appreciated by me and others, and that it does make a difference to us if you disappear.

In all honesty, my life is a little diminished without your daily notions.

So, after much thought, and soul-searching (not that I found that I had one…) I decided to write this…

You are all far too kind to a wretched sinner... :-)


Tell you what...

Give me July to think about a few things and collect my thoughts again, and I'll see... but I don't want to make any promises because I know what I'm like… 

It’s very easy to underestimate the small but significant part even a tiny puddle like mine plays in the lives of others. Even the humble “third spear carrier” can be the most vital role for someone watching the play, and if even the tiniest cog breaks, the watch will stop ticking.

I have genuinely been surprised and (you might be amazed to find…) a little bit humbled by such nice things being said about this inconsequential yet substantial Albatross which I had been carrying around recently…

Sometimes we all need remind ourselves of that when the big, bad world seems as if it is stomping on our face.

See you in August…

Probably…