Friday, yesterday and almost out of memory already. All that remains is a book delivery, an attack of rhinitis, which stopped me going to the gym, collecting my drugs and England’s women beating USA at football. Of all these the book delivery was the most important. Two new books both by the new Nobel Literary Prize winner Annie Ernaux.
I read Exteriors at one sitting. They are a set of observations of real ordinary everyday life made in her journals. They are clear and perceptive and raise all sorts of emotions and ideas. In describing her observations Annie Ernaux says “I believe that desire , frustration and social and cultural inequality are reflected in the way we examine the contents of our shopping trolley or in the words we use to order a cut of beef or to pay tribute to a painting; that the violence and shame inherent in society can be found in the contempt a customer shows for a cashier or in the vagrant begging money who is shunned by his peers – in anything that appears to be unimportant and meaningless simply because it is familiar or ordinary.” and “Thus a supermarket can provide just as much meaning and human truth as a concert hall”. I like that, it as it calls to both the poet and the psychologist in me. She says that she has kept journals since the age of thirteen, which at first strikes me as odd but on reflection is not so unusual. The fact that I have been writing a log now everyday (almost) for over three years now seems to have passed me by. This couples with the fact that when I look at the end of the sofa where I keep myself I find I have at least five journals or logs going. I keep a training and eating diary, a cash book (vital since re-retiring) and at least three other journals that I use for observations, planning and poems. On top of that I write at least two or three letters a week. So I guess I am quite a “jotter”.
As evening approaches my eldest daughter and I cook tea so that a meal is ready when my partner returns from the gym. The evening is then all football, Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You. By the time all that is done its time to take my meds and go to bed.
Saturday and its 5:30 in the morning, my nose is running and I am sneezing, this is shit. I get up don my Gandolf gown and make myself coffee and toast. I plonk my sniffy self in front of the TV and watch the women’s rugby world cup matches being played in New Zealand. England thrash Fiji and New Zealand beat Australia and my nose begins to get less sniffy. The rest of the household slowly gets up and eventually my partner and I go food shopping at the garden centre. We tarry over hot chocolate and jammy scones while chatting about how we are and life stuff. Its normally the conversation we would have on a Saturday morning before we get up, but my sniffy nose put pay to that today. We eventually arrive home with food, daffodil bulbs and some plants. I settle down to have a coffee while I draft the blog and get myself ready to plant the new acquisitions, although I think I might need more bags of compost.
I was right I did need more compost, so my partner and I go to our alternative garden centre. While there we acquire yet more plants. So loaded down with bags of compost and new plants we return home. My partner gets on with some laundry while I watch the end of a rugby match during which I plan what I am going to do with the new plants. The thing about my garden is that it doesn’t matter how many plants I buy it’s impossible to fill the garden all year round so there is always room for more. By the time the rugby ends I’m ready to garden. So, I spend time digging holes, filling them with compost and gently planting our new acquisitions. I’ve acquired things that if I am lucky will be low maintenance and will grow from year to year. After some sweaty graft everything is ready to be watered in. Of course, this is not the end of the garden action as I still have to check Fort Hog and refill the food dish. Finally, I wipe round the garden taking pictures of the new arrivals. I think my camera is my record of the garden over the last few years.
At last, I am done and ready to return inside and clean up. There are a few minutes to rest and then it’s time to eat tea while watching Strictly. Well, that’s the evening gone once the football highlights are over. Tomorow is a gym day and a paracetamol day in preparation for jab Monday. How quickly the damn jab comes round.
