Happy New Year
It's January 1st, 2015. I'm sitting at the dining table in my parents house in Cornwall, accompanied by an empty coffee cup. The younger children are in the shower together – their raised voices drift along the hallway from time to time – shouting, laughing. I have to retrieve them in a few minutes before they use all of the hot water. Our eldest is still fast asleep in bed – her body clock running on “teenage time” (loosely translated as staying up until midnight, and not scraping herself out of bed until lunchtime). My other half is hiding in the bedroom, trying to avoid the world for another hour or so. The movie “Over the Hedge” is playing on the TV in the lounge – nobody is watching it.
Ten minutes later and the children are out of the shower, turning the bedroom upside down in search of fresh clothes. Our eldest is stirring, with the promise of a cup of tea if she makes it to the kitchen. My other half is left undisturbed.
I sat down yesterday evening with all the intentions in the world of writing something important, or meaningful about the end of the year, and came up with nothing. While standing in the shower this morning all sorts of ideas presented themselves about the coming year, but given the assault ever since of conversations, instructions to children, picking things up, putting things away, switching showers on, chasing towel wrapped children, making tea, and trying to ignore the television, any grand thoughts about what I might have writtenhave completely gone. This is not unusual.
Maybe that's the thought to take forward into the new year – to stop trying so hard to make this blog into something it is not. Sure, I can come up with clever words given peace and quiet, but peace and quiet hardly ever happens. I am a part of a family – my job invariably consists of putting one foot in front of another, catching people, paying for things, dusting people down, and setting them on their way again. Sure, I would love to write the huge tomes that some turn out about their life, hopes, dreams, and deepest thoughts, but I'm sitting here writing this as fast as possible before making a promised drink for our eldest daughter. After that I will look in on my other half. My Dad is emptying the fireplace from last night. My Mum is washing up. Time to write introspective clap-trap doesn't happen for me.
Perhaps this blog should have a new tag-line this year – something about scribbled notes about life on the run. Recording the minutiae when I have a chance.
On that note, I have a cup of tea to make for a 14 year old girl. I'll write more later.
Happy New Year!