Walking The Dog

One road.  One walk.  One day. And I want to cry. How hard is it to keep rubbish in your car?  Clearly, the answer is quite hard.  Picture the litter-lout or litter-bug. Why in the UK we (or is it just me?) use lout, which is male and defined as a man or boy who acts boorishly or with aggression and without consideration towards others, is a puzzle, because I suspect littering is not an entirely male habit. Anyway, back to the lout who, in his  (or her. But I will use his and let you assume his or her ) first act of loutish behaviour, broke the law eating while driving. And probably thought he was driving safely - it didn't cross his mind that eating may have been, perhaps, a little distracting. Why would it have been? The wrapper unwrapped itself, of course! The ring-pull tugged and folded itself against the can; the crisp packet yawned itself open and the dozens of probiotic drink bottles (yes!!) pulled their own foil caps off. So th...

What do I remember of the year we spent in Australia? The heat; the long drives; long-striding lightning dancing across distant, dry plains; the gorillas at Melbourne zoo; an abundance of unfamiliar fruit and vegetables; kangaroo (and roo-burgers); trams; crisp slithers of eucalyptus leaves underfoot on forest trails; a little girl who didn't like sand between her toes; vertiginous peaks and plummeting shadows and cliffs where the earth had broken and fissured in the Blue Mountains; the Twelve Apostles of the Southern Ocean; spiders (lots of spiders); a relaxed cafe culture; Italian food on Lygon Street; earthy browns and creamy dots of aboriginal paintings; verandahs; snakes; public parks; wind, buffeting and forcing dry grit into your face round every pavement corner; and a distant city that sat on the palm of my hand - yes to all of those. But the sharpest memory is of the light: a fierce light, forcing a wash of white over everything burning in its glare. An unforgiving lig...

In a few hours - and fewer hours by the time you get to the end of this procrasti-ramble - it will be another year. 2016 will be in the past and 2017 will open its doors and lie before us. Which is all pretty obvious really. This being 31st December. What perhaps isn't so obvious are the hopes and aspirations we invest in this passing into the New Year. The promises that we wish upon ourselves and that we call resolutions. Brief intermission in the ramble for a picture of the end of a winter's day The New Year's Resolution is a gift in the hands of a procrastinator. Hours ... no, days ... spent planning exactly what to pick; which dissatisfaction with oneself to correct; which dream to commit to; which impossible ambition to clamber towards. Note the words dissatisfaction, dream and impossible and call me a cynic. Or a realist. Or a resolution agnostic. Why do we accede to the annual resolution humiliation? Where and when did resolution-making start? Why do I h...

Doing a Kim Kardashian will go down in our family annals as a moment when my embarrassment was acute and I managed to make everyone in the room ache with laughter. Proper belly laughs. Holding of sides. Tears running down cheeks. Collapsed back into chairs or rolling on the floor. Yup - proper rocking from side to side rolling. For what felt like minutes but was probably only ... minutes. My face hurt with the intensity of the laughing and burned with all-consuming embarrassment. Kim Kardashian it said. The paper scrap I'd drawn from the pot. Kim. Kardashian. Describe her in three words. Actions allowed. Ums and ehs and erms all contributing to the three word rule. A huge dinner was nestling inside my tummy. With rather too many glasses of bubbles, then wine, then pudding and more pudding. Kim. Kardashian. In three words. Easy? Well - yes; probably. Unless. Unless. Unless you make the near-fatal mistake of thinking it would be a good idea to stand up and mime the...

Are you a writer of lists? I used to be an avid list writer. If pushed, I'll still write one now. I have pads of paper that prompt list writing; my favourite is headed 'This Week ... or next ...' which sums me up perfectly. An average procrastinator will put off the listed activities to another week, another time, another dimension, perhaps. A fully committed procrastinator - or FCP - will put off the writing of the list! I am an FCP ... most of the time - carrying around bits of lists in my head; forgetting to do the things I might have remembered if I had written them down; and, until I am reminded, remaining blissfully ignorant of my many failings. Many failings that are obvious only if categorised and the only way to categorise them would be to write them down. So, as I am not going to list them and I defy anyone else to, perhaps those failings, ultimately undocumented ... or unlisted, can be forgotten. Who, apart from someone with narcissistic tendencies, wants to ma...

What makes you happy? What makes me happy? Finding good words written on a page; discovering adventure in a book and not turning back; laughing and calling my daughter a Giggle-Monger and finding that she liked it and laughing more; shopping for presents; eating too much food in good company; planning Christmas and remembering Christmases past when little hands decorated the tree with a skirt of decorations, all at 1-2 feet above ground level and the top of the tree bare; cooking a feast; sharing the feast; hugs; ice-cream ... always ice-cream; and chocolate; a pale crisp white wine or a fruity beaujolais, and feet. No, not the smelly, hair-sprouting, thick nailed sort. No. Definitely not! The fall of feet - the feet of my children and their friends and our friends and family - as they walk into our home and do a soft-foot-settling-contented-happy shuffle. On my floors. Feet. Feet on floors. The footfall of passing lives. Here. At home. At Christmas. But ... but ... but ... ...

Whisper to the wind, ' This is how to write.' No, not these inexpertly assembled procrasti-rambles but words discovered in a book that I have been promising myself I would read for many, many months and have now started. My ascent so far has taken me to chapter 4. What a journey those first chapters have been! I am daily transported to India. All its scents, noises, lights, people, traffic, food, grime, poverty, politics, fabrics, fruits, spirits, humanity, hysteria, tragedy, faith, prostitution, drugs, hospitality, bribery, corruption, travel, cosmopolitan enlightenment, tolerances and intolerances in just four chapters; sixty or so pages. A portrait of a place so immersive and with characters so bright that they light up each page with the intense shine of their being. Reality is not merely being created for the reader - this setting and its characters live and breathe (even if some of them are fictional). What a lesson in how to write! I don't remember now ...