The New Normal Country Garden.
Back in the old normal I used to go into town and sit down in a cafe and write. I liked the ambience of cafes. I liked being locked away in a world of my own in the hubbub of other people's lives. I like the steaming and banging of the coffee machines. I very occasionally liked the music. It was good to leave the house to go somewhere else to work, like it was a proper job and I wasn't just a deranged fantasist scribbling mad nonsense into a notebook.
Though obviously that's exactly what I am.
Occasionally, if I strayed close to the magic hour (six o clock) I might swing by a pub and drink beers with friends. Yes, remember that? Beer with friends: that was the old normal.
In the new normal, how we live now, that can't happen. In the new normal I lie on the sofa watching the magical, children's adventure series "Merlin" mainly because I fancy the actress playing Morgana. I graze. I drink so much tea that there is never a point, night or day, that don't want a wee. I am merely facilitating the transfer of a body of liquid from teapot to toilet. I'm taking it on a short walk up the stairs.
I hurt my foot a week ago attempting exercise and have barely left the house since. Today I put my knee through a pair of jeans, presumably because I now have fat knees. The bath groans when I get into it and I displace more water than Moses and the fleeing Israelites. I gave up drinking, supposedly for a year, but with occasional lost weekends for good behaviour. But my birthday coincided with the dawning of The Age of Contagious and I've been boozing semi-regularly since then. Susan and I have weekly "Restaurant" nights, where we cook up a fancy meal, get dressed in our finery and quaff fine wines while listening to jazz. Our weekends have the woozy, decadent quality of two cosy middle-aged people getting tipsy and failing to find anything worth watching Netflix. Quiet Days in Clichy it is not. Waistband tormenting it is.
My new normal is being fat in a room with a television until its time to go to bed. Some childhood dreams do come true.
In an attempt to claw back some control I have started writing in the garden. The weather has been almost sarcastically lovely, I have access to a garden and one of the lawn chairs still takes my weight, so I've been strolling out across the decking, sitting down at our rusting garden table and scribbling away merrily in a notebook. The coffee is free and the sound of my neighbour's angle-grinder is only slightly more annoying than the Caffe Nero playlist. I'm being quite productive: I've written a number of political monologues that will never be used. I've written what I think is a good short story. I'm writing what is at the moment a very bad short story that I'm hoping I can polish into something strange and beautiful. I'm even getting paid for some of them.
That is something I would like to become the new normal.
 |
| A bunch of savages in my bastard garden ruining it |
Though obviously that's exactly what I am.
Occasionally, if I strayed close to the magic hour (six o clock) I might swing by a pub and drink beers with friends. Yes, remember that? Beer with friends: that was the old normal.
In the new normal, how we live now, that can't happen. In the new normal I lie on the sofa watching the magical, children's adventure series "Merlin" mainly because I fancy the actress playing Morgana. I graze. I drink so much tea that there is never a point, night or day, that don't want a wee. I am merely facilitating the transfer of a body of liquid from teapot to toilet. I'm taking it on a short walk up the stairs.
I hurt my foot a week ago attempting exercise and have barely left the house since. Today I put my knee through a pair of jeans, presumably because I now have fat knees. The bath groans when I get into it and I displace more water than Moses and the fleeing Israelites. I gave up drinking, supposedly for a year, but with occasional lost weekends for good behaviour. But my birthday coincided with the dawning of The Age of Contagious and I've been boozing semi-regularly since then. Susan and I have weekly "Restaurant" nights, where we cook up a fancy meal, get dressed in our finery and quaff fine wines while listening to jazz. Our weekends have the woozy, decadent quality of two cosy middle-aged people getting tipsy and failing to find anything worth watching Netflix. Quiet Days in Clichy it is not. Waistband tormenting it is.
My new normal is being fat in a room with a television until its time to go to bed. Some childhood dreams do come true.
In an attempt to claw back some control I have started writing in the garden. The weather has been almost sarcastically lovely, I have access to a garden and one of the lawn chairs still takes my weight, so I've been strolling out across the decking, sitting down at our rusting garden table and scribbling away merrily in a notebook. The coffee is free and the sound of my neighbour's angle-grinder is only slightly more annoying than the Caffe Nero playlist. I'm being quite productive: I've written a number of political monologues that will never be used. I've written what I think is a good short story. I'm writing what is at the moment a very bad short story that I'm hoping I can polish into something strange and beautiful. I'm even getting paid for some of them.
That is something I would like to become the new normal.
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