KEEPING IT BRIEF

I had thought that I might try to do some writing again yesterday. Oh, nothing spectacular, you understand? There would be no attempts at churning out a great masterpiece of literature or drama or anything like that. I’ve already come to one or two conclusions about my potential in that department. One, that, if I am going to persist with these musings, then I’m going to have to keep them brief in order to have the time to do them at all, and two, there are already far more people who are far more able and qualified to deliver the great works, so I really ought to leave that sort of thing to those who are best able to do it.

Nevertheless, we did have a Sunday to ourselves, and I did think that I might find an hour or so to take advantage of a day of not running to the hospital or battling my way through snow, or just having to think about the daily grind of working, instead to try once more to put some words down, in between the splutterings of this damned persistent coughing that refuses to go away.

But it didn’t work out like that.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a day full of crises or anything like that, and I did manage not to get TOO distracted by the craving to cross words (or should that be swords…?) with the great and the wittiest of online banterists.

I simply woke up both earlier and later than expected, and the day got filled up, as days will do, that’s all. The snow continued to fall and fall, not that that is an issue when you have no plans to go anywhere, and we stayed firmly in “batten down the hatches” mode, and yet even being so obviously housebound did not find me drawn towards the keyboard and more wordsmithery.

There were some lovely moments; A fine early breakfast, a superb fresh-baked Sunday brunch, and an evening of working our way through the various cheeses left over from Christmas. There were a couple of telephone calls which needed to be dealt with, and there was a beautiful five minutes when dozens of birds took advantage of the fresh nuts that both myself and our neighbours had put out in the bird-feeders. At least a dozen Long-tailed Tits at one point, and a Nuthatch that actually stood still for a comparatively long length of time.

Mostly, though, the day vanished as we watched sixteen, yes, sixteen (count ’em…) episodes of a TV series called “Battlestar Galactica” which we’re currently “box-set blitzing” in much the same way as we once did with “The West Wing” a few years ago. The show’s been over for at least four years, but I’d never actually watched it and, whilst I could try and get all “highbrow” on you and say that it’s causing us to have some fascinating debates upon the subject of what it means to be human, mostly we are now engaged in a race to get ahead of a colleague of the beloved whom I’ve never even met, who’s also working his way through the same show, but who has a slight tendency to let slip the occasional accidental spoiler when they discuss quite where they’ve got up to.

Small battles, I know, but when you’ve got a chance to make the jump, you’ve got to take them. So, now that you know this, and how shallow my free days can turn out to be, I’d appreciate it if you’ll just let us get on with it, and not let slip any frakking spoilers yourselves, if you get my drift…?

After all, sometimes you’ve got to roll the hard six…