Mid life crisis? Or just a case of seeing a horizon filled with the wrong type of work

Work-life balance - an odd expression, especially when you have run up against an iron railing of a work-life balance-dilemma. With railings you generally have two choices - pass through them if there is a gate, or if you are thin enough (!!!!! NY resolution is at risk of becoming a February resolution) and the space between the railings is wide enough to accommodate you, or climb over them. There is however a third option - you can pause, sit, put down roots, procrastinate and stop; this equals inertia and is not a happy place to be. You can't go backwards because that is the past and history cannot be rewritten, but something is preventing you from making progress. I can give many names to that something - it is indecision, fear, uncertainty, endless excuses - washing up, ironing, walking the dog, shopping, drinking coffee, lacking confidence, and putting everyone but yourself first. You know that the future lies beyond the railings, but you can't see how to get there - you can probably see exactly how to help everyone else get through their own personal sets of railings, but you just seem incapable of doing it for yourself. And you dither - for weeks! Getting nowhere fast.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that faced with decisions about work - which actually feel more like decisions about work, life, the universe and everything - I .... well, you know what I do - I'm doing it now. I didn't declare myself a pretty good procrastinator a few blogs back for nothing!

Perhaps this is a mid-life crisis - the big what next moment. But why call it a work - life balance? To balance two things is to establish an equilibrium between them, the two things are different but equal - work-life balance therefore implies that work and life are separate and that work is not part of life. So when I feel dead at work, perhaps I am!

Mmmm - solution? The usual ... eat chocolate! And procrastinate a bit more.

... so, these February Resolutions ...

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Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...

Curlews, summer skies and walking in circles.

Summer skies over the Yorkshire Dales and my mind is set to rest mode. But that rest is not totally restful; there is a niggle ... a memory, a hint of childhood, something that unsettles slightly - a light brush stroke of discomfort; a gossamer breath of discombobulation and a 'Woah! Wait a moment!' moment of 'that's-not-right!' - we're about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in middle Britain and yet, I can hear the distinctive Peep! Peep! of oystercatchers and the piercing cry of curlew. Here - in the blue skies of the North Yorkshire dales and along the footpaths - and above the endless miles of drystone walls are birds that should be at the coast. Oystercatchers, with their distinctive red pliers attached to their heads feed on - you've guessed it - oyster beds. All along the coastline of the British Isles, their distinctive cry is the call of summer. Drowned out somewhat by the banter of seagulls but sharp and ...

Heaven clearly can't wait. Ranting and screaming inside. Growing old and lecturing ... myself, mostly.

What follows should come with a warning - it is a preachy rant. Stop now if you're not in the mood for a lecture. Or, if you're into procrasti-reading, read on and (hopefully) enjoy my latest piece of procrasti-writing. Apologies too for the reference to elderly leakages. And farts. And now, for being deeply irreverent. Sorry. Heaven can't wait. Meatloaf was wrong. Clearly the 'band of Angels' is impatiently putting together a gig. There's a party happening which we haven't been invited to. Yet. What a terrible year 2016 has been, so far. And we are barely dipping our winter-wrapped toes into Spring. Is it that the roll-call of those summoned to a higher place grows ever more poignant as we age? Prince was but a few years older than me. Victoria Wood, a meaningless number of years older still. Meaningless because what does age mean astride the long plateau of middle age before the eventual slide into decrepitude? A few years here, a few there - we...

Walking The Dog

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