Is this the story of my life? Good intentions but then the rest of my world gets in the way. This short biography will continue but I'm away from home and so do not have all my notes.
Perhaps I should now start from this end and work backwards towards those halcyon days, when me and the world were still young?
Yesterday was important because I obtained an allotment. It's not huge, just 5 rods, which is half the normal size but it's a short cycle ride away from home and the lady who worked it before me seems to have only just stopped using it - and she had dug over most of the ground. That meant that within an hour of signing the agreement with the local council to rent the plot I could plant two rows of onions and a row of shallots!
I woke this morning full of ideas, ready to plant even more seeds but was forced in another direction, which sent me off to Bury St Edmunds to pick up something for a friend, and the rest of today is already allocated to other tasks. Is that a function of retirement: to fill the available time? And are those new, ever-pressing, tasks really that important? I wonder.
There was a time when I was inundated with nuisance telephone calls. I told those who promised to place me on a register that would ensure that I was never phoned on a Sunday afternoon by Kitchens Direct (can you believe that - a Sunday afternoon!) or strange voices from Asian sweat shops asking to talk to someone in charge of IT, or to tell me that my mobile phone contract is about to expire - how the hell do they know anyway - to no avail. The answer was not to answer the phone at all. For the first few days that was difficult, but I soon managed to dismiss its insistence, and found that it always gave up before I did. It was the same technique I used to give up smoking, to make it a challenge between me and the phone, or the cigarette. They wanted me more than I wanted them. Easy.
Spent last night with two good friends, who shall remain anonymous because they don't usually answer their front door bell in the evening. I'd called twice, to no answer, but kept persisting and finally struck lucky, they answered the door.
Their reluctance to answer was the result of not having a television licence, a strict requirement in Great Britain. Their reasoning for not having a licence is too complex for this short spat, but I couldn't live my life that way, wondering who was waiting at the door, ready to pounce upon my cheque book.
Perhaps more tales of Islington nick would be more exciting!
