Conversations with my Husband
I love my husband. No, really, I do. But after 30 years of marriage we do get on each other’s nerves at times! Take Sunday morning.
Him: My knee hurts.
Me: Oh dear. Why?
Him: (becoming animated) we were playing on hard ground yesterday so the ball was quick-
Me: (interrupting in a desperate attempt to get him to stop) Did you get hit on the knee by a cricket ball?
Him: (ignoring me) I was batting sticky-leg-before-wicket-straight-on (this is just a rough translation, you understand) and I’d just clipped the ball on the outside of my bat-
Me: So you got hit on the knee by a cricket ball?
Him: Smithy was running the crease on the left hand side of the leg-over googlie and the Umpire was biased because he’s only got one eye. Jonesy was giving their team a bit of rag which was a bit out of order when I was 99 for 56 in the fifth division league of gentlemen
Me: (desperately) My ears are bleeding…
Him: (oblivious) yaddah yaddah yaddah cricket…blah blah...
Flow
Do you ever get so engrossed in what you’re doing that every part of you, mentally, physically and probably spiritually, is engaged and time ceases to have any meaning? Everything is falling into place, your ideas are coming together seamlessly and your productivity, (though you’re probably barely aware of this until later) soars. The house could start to burn down around you and you’d still “just finish this bit”. If you do, you know the true meaning of “flow”.
If this doesn’t resonate with you, watch a child play by himself. Immersed in his imagination, his whole body will be involved in what he is doing. We tend to lose such intense focus as we move out of childhood. So the child who could spend days at a time in a fantasy world of her own making will gradually lose the ability to escape the mundane, and the necessary skill of being in the here and now subjugates the need to dream.
One day in the Spring, I was “in flow”....
Whose Hands?
Whose hands are these?
WARNING: IF YOU ARE ONE OF MY CHILDREN, (OR GENERALLY OF A NERVOUS DISPOSITION) DO NOT READ ON. I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR HORROR AND EMBARRASSMENT IF YOU IGNORE THIS NOTICE.
I could write reams about the sadness I feel at the slow, but relentless degradation of my body. I shall skim over the details lest it put you off your skinny latte, suffice to say that I now have more curves than angles and about as much spring-back-ability in my skin as a piece of broken knicker elastic.
I’ve changed my mind – have a few details: I now have what I like to call “silver highlights”, though who I think would actually sit in the hairdresser’s with foils on their head to achieve this effect I have no idea. Over time, my foundation wear (what a lovely, old-fashioned phrase!) has become more about containment and less about boasting and I sometimes find myself hunting for “comfortable” knickers. You know, ladies, the kind that...
