I just couldn’t motivate myself to write yesterday. Totally uninspired. So, here I am, Tuesday, and the most awful day! It might just as well be dark, the rain is torrential and I am absolutely freezing to the extent that I’m not sure how long my fingers will continue to respond. Yes, I am dangerously close to turning on the heating – and it is, certainly, on of an evening – but it’s all downhill from there. I have resorted to wearing this disgusting old, long, green (never!) cardigan – known as my ‘dressing gown’ to those close – which is all bobbly and in which I would never be seen in public but … it’s cosy! Why not? I’ve decided to call these my ‘What the Hell!’ years!
Actually, just writing those words makes me feel better … my ‘What the Hell!’ years. Join me, if one dare! Meanwhile, tempus fugit and I should really be writing my current memoir – over 20,000 words, now, and counting. Christmas is my deadline as I have already decided that 2022 will be dedicated to the explosive tome on my family; a story worthy of a mini-series, if not a film and, sadly, one to which so many will relate. Jealousy, insecurity, deceit, guilt, blind loyalty, stubbornness … all play their part in what, really, could be regarded as a psychological study (nearly wrote ‘thriller’!). It will be difficult to write but cathartic to transfer thoughts to paper; truths instead of lies.
Back, after venturing unto the breach, I’ve decided to allocate myself an hour to complete and post. I have a date, this evening, with the acclaimed author, Tim Parks, who moved to Italy in 1981 and has been prolific in his writing about his adopted country ever since. I suspect few will venture out in this but the opportunity to be whisked away to sunnier climes, if only in one’s imagination, has to be worth it. So, now, just after 5pm, the clock is ticking …
Recovered from the ‘global outage’ of yesterday? Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were all down for approximately six hours as ‘staff’ were endeavouring to reach the fuse box but were denied access to the building – who are they and where is this? Bill Gates’ mansion? – as, systems down, their passes were not recognised. Pause for laughter. I mean, this is the problem. No backup!! Has nobody realised that technology is dependent on technology? Eggs in one basket and all that?! Joking aside, though, how stupid are we supposed to be? I suspect there was a lot more to this blackout and I suspect it is a whole lot more sinister. Reset? Something to do with data collection? Monitoring? Not buying it.
Moving on from virtual control to control on the ground. My ears pricked up as I was listening to the radio on Friday and heard the words ‘mandatory for children’ or ‘home-schooled’. Turns out the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is to make the COVID vaccination mandatory for school children – phasing it in as the US government grants final vaccine approval for age groups – and any student, without an exemption, who refuses to comply will be forced to study at home. Am I missing something here? Are we, unknowingly, in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? I demand to see my contract! Get me my agent! Think about it, vaccines go way back, the first being cited as that for smallpox in 1798. Scientific genius at play saving lives in their droves right up until the present day. Subject to stringent testing, said vaccines have been developed over years AND guess what, not one has been made mandatory for everyday life! Funny that. Why now? Couldn’t be anything to do with politics, could it? Couldn’t be anything to do with profit or power? Don’t be ridiculous! This is for the greater good. Must be or how could anyone with a conscience enforce a vaccine for school children for which there is no long-term data?
Gosh, I scared myself there! Ten minutes to go, how about something more trivial? Princess Beatrice and the birth of her new baby daughter, Sienna Elizabeth … Tell me, are the Royals contracted to include Elizabeth in the names of all daughters? Keeping on Granny’s good side with one eye on the inheritance?! It’s hardly the most attractive of names and, quite honestly, it’s over-boiled now. Anyway, exciting for Beatrice and her husband, Eduardo and life-changing? Not so much. Apparently, a £1000/week Norland Nanny was selected five months in advance and, as if she weren’t sufficient to ease the load, they have, also, employed a £200/night maternity nurse. Of course. One might be forgiven for thinking Beatrice will have to make an appointment to see her own baby! Perhaps the life of a ‘common shop girl’ is more demanding than one thinks? Sorry, in-joke apropos an episode of The Windsors in which Bea was at Glastonbury, wishing to be incognito, and adopted the persona of Truuuuush, a common shop girl. If the name fits!
Five minutes over my hour … Rain still teeming. Less and less inclined to go and see Tim! Anyway, returning to Bea and Edo, at least they won’t be short of rooms for Sienna and her entourage having, apparently, bought a country pile in Oxfordshire worth millions. She married well! Confirmation, at least, of the highs and lows of life. Let me introduce one to my father …
Right, I’m going. An hour has proven to be not nearly enough! I’ll finish with this: browsing on the official website of the recently re-furbished and re-opened Rusacks Hotel, St Andrews, I was suitably impressed until this: a box with the words ‘BOOK RESERVATIONS’, everywhere. Is it just me? Doesn’t one ‘book’ a room or ‘reserve’ a table? The point being, both words mean the same thing. It is just wrong to put them together! Honestly, whatever happened to standards? Standards, my dear … Bring back Downton, quickly!
One thousand and one words in one hour and a half. Pathetic! A variation, then, on those sometimes attributed to Mark Twain …
‘If I had more time, I would have written less.’
Exactly!
This is Trish, signing off.
