Rosetinted

Alongside the easing of lockdown, my time has been punctuated by small efforts (I am currently trying to practice Daily Yoga and cut out alcohol) and life-affirming trips into nature, all this between the hours I wander from room to room in the throes of I 'Should be doing something'. I have been doing something, I have been busy disentangling myself away from the cold-comfort of Facebook and Twitter, at least I have made the step of removing the apps from my phone. Of course I still have access, both are accessible on my laptop and from time to time I pop in to look at what other people are doing. We all know by now that these places are not without a health warning and as much as people make me laugh, a percentage make me long for the climatic disaster that now seems inevitable (is the end of human race really such a horror?) When I am not being driven to nihilistic musings, I am led into deep thought about other things (realising that perhaps these humans are not all bad). C...

I like Charles Bukowski. When I read his books as an early 20 something, with the mind of an early teen, I admired many of his characteristics. I liked his clipped sentences and simple vocabulary. I liked that he worked and lived in mundanity and made his observations compelling. I liked that he wasn't afraid of his disdain of everything and everyone (I on the other hand was being eaten alive by my own).  I liked his ambition and his daily dedication to two things I liked: drinking and writing. Most of all I liked that he was the archetypal writer: difficult, ugly, and alcoholic. His talent transcending background or opportunity or trends. I read a fair few of his books - Ham on Rye, Factotum, Post Office and perhaps Women. It was comforting and a source of hope that his success came so late on in his life, after being laid so low by the day in and day outness of boring jobs.  I also really liked the fact I was reading Bukowski whilst other young women were immersed in Austin ...

It is now officially the summer holidays, the time of year many of us look forward to, some of us (teachers, politicians and a few blessed others) have a decent amount of time where we don't work and god knows I look forward to it. Only, this year it is a little different - I had some time where I did not work at school, followed by a half-term of being a child-carer more than a teacher. So I wonder, why did I feel that I needed the holidays so much? Why at the end of that paltry half term was I so bone tired and utterly exhausted and why does that feeling continue?  Perhaps, I have gotten accustomed to doing little for a state payout, 'addicted' to it, as some politician somewhere has suggested. Yes, it is dreadful that the less middle class amongst us, who have been working regularly since 13 should want a rest from it all- how very dare us. Our job is to work incredibly hard until our old age, enjoy a few years of pootling around Morrison's cafe and trundling boxed t...

It has been very difficult to write lately, you see I have unintentionally returned to a childhood state of fear and I know it is through no one's fault except my own. Whilst I struggle with this burden  I have rendered myself mute. After years of inwardly complaining that it is external factors that have silenced me, I have in effect put a rather large sticking plaster over my own gob. It was never my intention to turn my lockdown journals into political rants and I would rather not become too opinionated; I thought I would be the champion of light entertainment, teatime magazine posts with the odd dad joke and breezy life observations; all positioned through a rose tinted lens. Alas, as this confounded pandemic has gone on I have found myself on the precipice of something new and I fear the leap I could take. I am under no illusions - I know that right now, not one person is asking me to write my life observations and this is nothing more than a hobby. I think the few I have gath...

I have been spending much of my time watching gardening programs. What with lockdown, early spring sun and a will for green fingers, me and a bunch of other Brits have been lost imagining ourselves as Percy Thrower, or for those of you under 40, Monty Don. I do love a tour around these television gardens and I am in awe of them knocking out a 200 quid wooden planter and filling them instantly with a van full of healthy plants that they just acquired from some organic nursery. I do ask myself how realistic is this for us inner city, budget bound gardens? I have been gardening sporadically for a few years with differing degrees of success. The rot sets in for me around about October when the lack of sunlight takes my soul and whisks me to Grimsville. I usually wake from my winter coma a bit too late, plant too late and then spend the spring sun time willing everything to grow faster. I am in training this year, to become a filthy weather gardener, it is the only kind that will have any...

I am, along with many other people, entering a new phase in our lockdown experience and with the change of  events brings a different emotional response. I have been wrestling with writing the lockdown journal,  not only because now I have less time afforded to me, but also because whenever I sit down to write; my emotions will not allow me to write anything light or uplifting. You see, now I am expected to ease my way into 'normal' human existence, the only way I can describe what I am feeling at this present time, is sad. It is a heavy and specific sadness but one that feels unreal and muted. A few mornings last week I woke up as if from a tragic dream and on the brink of tears, a glum feeling and not a clue of where it arrived from. Not fed up, or worried or puzzled but deep rooted sadness. Fortunately, once I get to work and I try and fill my mind with the task in front of me that feeling escapes me and I am occupied, busy and none too concerned - on returning back into my...

It's Monday, and I have just finished work. I have been out of the house and off to a different place to do something different to what I have become accustomed to. Life is changing, yet again. It is a bit of a shock to the system. I am having to perform tasks I would not necessarily choose to do but are necessary to do. That is the world of work. It has been a challenge to invent my own activities on a daily basis, but a challenge which has, on the whole, been really worthwhile. At long last I have learnt to do the activities which before the lockdown, only formulated in my head. I am grateful that I am returning to a job that is, for the most part, enjoyable and perhaps more importantly worthwhile. This feeling of gratitude has not made my recent walks to work any less sobering, as I consider that after the brief interlude of my lockdown situation,  I return, possibly for the next 20 years or so. I walk to work, in gratitude twinged with slight dread - how do I avoid the exhaus...