Walking The Dog

Imagine having a word that you can't mention. Like Voldemort, say, in Harry Potter land. Or fart when in the company of a great aunt. Or ice-cream if surrounded by toddlers. A bad idea, in the wrong situation, to utter any of those out loud. So it is with the W word in our house. If we say it and don't act upon it, it becomes a form of torture and a source of great, moaning-laden frustration. Utter it and the excitement created could be bottled. If you are in possession of a canine companion ... that looks wrong; arguably, it is the canine companion who possesses you ...  you will be aware of the strike-a-match potential of the W word. And the need to find alternatives - shall we go for a perambulation in half an hour? Or is it time for a stroll ? Or what about a wander across the fields? Or anyone fancy placing one foot in front of the other for an hour or so? Speak the W word itself and observe the transformation, from this to this ... actually it is s...

Early morning sun and a walk with Four-legged-friend and Bertie Baggins Frosty underfoot giving way to blue sky and long shadows and sunny boys Taking 'the path less travelled by' takes on a whole new meaning here - left, right or straight to heaven? But perhaps, this procrasti-rambler needs to forget heaven and see it as up . Stepping upwards and onwards. Taking the harder choice, the brave one, the one where challenges are met and tackled and overcome. Maybe, I should see it as a metaphor for ceasing to procrastinate and doing the things that are frightening and hard to face. When it comes to writing, criticism and rejections are hard to receive; praise is seldom fully believed and there is, ever present, the niggling doubt that the only person you write for is yourself. Being a writer can be immensely lonely. Sharing your writing risks increasing the loneliness, because, once it's out ther...

Dreich - Scottish word: meaning dull, damp, gloomy, perhaps a bit misty, and generally miserable as applied to weather. It could involve rain or just the heavy wetness that hangs in the air going nowhere until you step out into it and soak some of it up. It's wet. British. And in summer, associated with midges. Thankfully, this is winter and England. So no flying beasties with teeth. Just a pair of dogs and lots of water - raindrops on the village duck-pond deer on the horizon and dogs in the stream A clean stream. A stream (hopefully) protected by UK or (at the pre-Brexit moment) European laws. Unlike streams, waterways and rivers in America. They were protected. But no more. Not after Yuge  D and his gang of environmentally unfriendly friends swung behind a Congressional Review Act to repeal the Stream Protection Rule. They prefer coal dust on their hands to clean water in their streams and lakes and taps. Mining companies will no longer ris...

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...